


Atlantic Avenue

by lilac_drop



Category: Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Aftermath of Violence, Alternate Universe, Canon-Typical Violence, Captain America/Modern Bucky, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Friends to Lovers, Hurt/Comfort, Hydra, Implied/Referenced Torture, M/M, Mutual Pining, Not Canon Compliant, POV Alternating, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Reimagine of TWS, Resolved Sexual Tension, Shrunkyclunks, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-21
Updated: 2018-12-06
Packaged: 2019-06-14 03:20:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 46,963
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15379539
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lilac_drop/pseuds/lilac_drop
Summary: Bucky stared down at the letter. It had a faded coffee stain next to the scribbled signature, and sure as hell, Captain America had taken time out of saving the world (or whatever he did on a Monday) to send Bucky a personal thank you. There was a tiny doodle of the shop storefront, the inky lines dark and steady.He was definitely getting this framed.-Or: Bucky really isn't sure whether jumping into Captain America's fight was one of the dumbest things he'd ever done, or one of the bravest. According to Steve, it was both.And as time would tell, it seemed that their lives had been on a crash course toward each other from the very start.





	1. Bucky

The whole thing about quitting smoking and actually _quitting_ smoking was that it required self-discipline and sheer grit, which he didn’t have much to spare of these days. His lungs didn’t need it, and his wallet sure didn’t need it, but he was sitting outside sucking one down while the sun just started to peak.

 Watching dawn break over New York was a sight he had seen hundreds of times, but he thought it had its own charm, even now. It was a kind eye over the leftovers from last night, stumbling home in clubbing clothes and fucked-up hair; increasing traffic, the soon-rising frequency of honking and buses coughing; business-people drudging out for the day, coffee in hand.

The city never slept, sure, but it sped and slowed. Bucky, if anything, could understand that. He felt his throat go sour as he drew the cigarette down to its cartilage, and then he tossed it down on the wet asphalt, ground it with his rubber work shoe. He missed the comforting weight of his boots, but there was no place for Docs around the back of a bakery.

A bakery. Funny, that. All he had known to bake his entire life were flat cookies that came from a tin or box. He wasn’t certain that he was any good at it, actually, but there was something to be said about the job for an insomniac like him. 

After he had worked up the nerve to actually try securing a job, he had thought of like – a desk job where it didn’t matter if he was a slow typer, or working at a call center, because you only needed one hand to answer a phone. But here he was, and had been since 4 in the morning, sifting chocolate and kneading dough with (mainly) his right hand alone.

His shitty prosthetic was more a glorified prop than anything that was actually effecient. He would use it to keep bowls from slipping away from his grip completely, or to shove things aside if his other hand was occupied.

He glanced down at the weird rubberized fingers, how the fake flesh tone and white plastic parts were so off-kilter from the rest of his body. It was god-awful ugly and most days, he’d rather just pin his sleeve or leave it loose than put the thing on. Sometimes he jammed the fingers of it under his wobbly coffee table to stabilize it, and once he had sent a picture to his sister, Becca, who had texted back, _that’s not funny. Buy a new table, omg._

He thought it was kind of funny.

“It smells like a smokestack out here,” came a voice to his right, and he would have flinched if he hadn’t heard her coming. Bucky glanced at his coworker, Toddy, waving a hand in front of her face obnoxiously. She hated that he smoked, wouldn’t be around when he was, something about her grandma and blackened lungs. He didn’t blame her.

“Morning,” he said, bringing his coffee to his lips. Lukewarm and bitter, ah. Just how he liked it.

“Your heart is gonna explore, B,” she said, not unkindly. Her eyeliner was thick today, lips painted in a deep red. Unlike him, she actually had to interact with customers, and he still didn’t know how she made her face look so neat this early in the morning.

“Nice lipstick.”

“You say that literally every day.”

“Doesn’t make it less true,” he said, trying not to lean away when she sat next to him. If it were anyone else, he might have scooted minutely as he could so it didn’t seem awkward, but Toddy was his favorite and everyone knew it. She was a whole whopping 21, quiet and freakishly honest with him when everyone else seemed to try and skirt around issues.    

“Uh-huh,” she grunted, taking the coffee from his hand and swallowing a swig before he could warn her against it. Her dark eyes squinted immediately, and she thrust it back to him, shaking her head. “You’re so _gross.”_

“Yeah.”

“You drink that!”

“Yeah. ‘S good.”

“Whatever,” Toddy said, and when silence fell over them, it didn’t feel weird. It wasn’t the silence that was weird, after all, it was _him._ He used to be able to keep a conversation going, no problem, and even he wasn’t sure how he had done it. The person from five years ago was a stranger to him.

Bucky leaned his forehead against his palm, and it was greasy from the kitchen work. He was running on a whole hour of sleep, and his shift didn’t end till noon. Gathering his strength was like trying to grapple at a slipping rope. The bakery opened in ten minutes for the morning rush, and even though he would be working in the back as usual, the hustle and bustle drained him. Too many people talking at once squeezed his brain into a nervous vice.

“Oh, hey, I got you something.”

He glanced up, shooing a long lock of dark hair away from his face from where it had fallen from the bun. Toddy was digging in her little tote purse, the one that had cartoonish cats all over it. She yanked a tiny bottle out and handed it over. Bucky stared at the miniature green-and-white (lotion?) container, and it read, ‘ _Stress Relief’._ With eucalyptus and spearmint, and no, it was a shower gel.

“You’re funny,” he said, deadpan, but his mouth kind of quirked anyway. “Stop bringing me shit.”

“I’m not trying to be funny. It’s serious,” she replied, but when he looked at her, she was smiling. Her right canine was crooked. “I figure if I keep bringing you any of this hokey stress relief stuff, you might live to see old age. Did you use that bath bomb I brought?”

“Wouldn’t tell you if I hadn’t,” he grunted, shoving the gel into his backpack and refusing to let his mind linger on her age comment. He stood, shouldering his pack. “Thanks.”

“Anything I can do,” she said, and trotted after him, back through the heavy old door that led to the dry storage backroom. They threw their things into the small closet, amongst the cluttered items from other servers and bakers that were filtering in for the day. Out front, the chaos had already started; he could hear the clamor of everyone racing around the kitchen, finishing up first wave prep and readying the displays.

“I’ll see you out there,” Toddy said, her hand hovering over his shoulder for a second before she thought better of it. She took herself into the kitchen, the swinging doors revealing the bright lights and moving bodies for just a moment. And then he was alone again, amongst the shelves of ingredients and hum of the ice machine.

He remembered, abruptly, the restaurant job he had held down for a whopping 4 months when he was 16, a deli run by a sweaty-faced man. Mr. Lombardi? He had only gotten the gig because one of the workers was a friend of a friend…of a cousin to his father, or something. And god forbid the eldest Barnes kid not pull his weight and work, _for Christ’s sake._

Didn’t matter where the work was. Just get out there, be a person. A whole ten years, and he had weirdly come full circle. His arm ached, and Bucky rubbed at his shoulder absently, the skin raised and tough beneath his black uniform.

 

* * *

 

 

When Bucky finally managed to drag himself home, he felt drained of it. Saturdays were always hell. Michelle had booted him from the kitchen early after taking one look at his skittish expression, and maybe he should have felt ashamed, but there was only relief. He wanted to close himself into the dim of his apartment and stay there until his Monday shift.

Noise was too much. People were too much, pressed in on him like a wet cloth.

So of course, because his luck was flimsy as rice paper, Wade was sitting outside when he came bustling around into the backyard. The squat brownstone had four apartments, and on the bottom lived Bucky and Wade with only a dirty hallway separating them. But the patio out back was communal, and overgrown with weeds that busted through the cracks of the cement.

Wade was sitting in a plastic lawn chair, a joint dangling from his lips and watching an episode of Breaking Bad on the dinky TV that sat outside on an old grocery crate. Bucky stepped over the extension cord that ran behind the TV and Wade nodded at him.

“Welcome home, sweetcheeks,” he greeted. In the late morning sun, the burns of his face and scalp seemed like molded wax.

“Wade,” Bucky replied wearily, going to slide open the back door.

“Hey! Not gonna sit with me for a second? I’ll make it good for you,” Wade said, twisting around.

“I’m not really - ”

“Just a few minutes, c’mon. This episode is almost over.”

Bucky let out a long suffering sigh, but turned, settling stiffly into the other lawn chair. He didn’t bother taking his backpack off his shoulder.

“This is the one where they blow up the nursing home,” Wade whispered loudly, like they were sitting in a theatre and not their dilapidated backyard. Bucky didn’t reply, because it seemed like too much work, and because he had no idea what was happening. His gaze drifted down, landing on Wade’s chewed-up old Crocs and stained socks. God in heaven.

They sat in silence, Wade puffing away and Bucky slouching with his arm resting over his stomach, blankly watching the flurry of events on the TV. This still felt very strange and very normal all at once - this whole thing, it was a ritual. Bucky didn’t know where Wade disappeared to every night, into the small hours of the morning, getting home when Bucky was leaving. But every day around noon, without fail, Wade was sitting outside, smoking and drinking (either iced tea or beer, depending on his mood).

The first eight months Bucky had lived here, those awful eight months where he hadn’t bothered to leave his apartment, Wade knocked on his door every day. Sometimes Bucky slept through it, drug-induced into a hazy sleep; sometimes he jolted awake at the noise and remained silent to Wade’s call of, _I’m goin’ outside._

Eight months. Eight months before he had joined Wade on the ancient patio, sweating and squinting against the glare of the sun. He had only lasted five minutes outside those first few weeks before he bolted back inside.

Well, it seemed so long ago. But it wasn’t, wasn’t really, because time passed strangely and here Bucky was, sitting outside after getting home from work, watching the main antagonist get half his face destroyed. When the credits rolled, he grabbed the arm of the chair and hoisted himself to his feet.

“You know, sometimes I’d think you don’t wanna spend time with me,” Wade said, not looking up.

“You’d think right.”

“Wow. A divorce is on the horizon. Hey, Vanessa showed your picture to one of the girls in the club. She said you looked like the bad boy type. You the bad boy type?”

“I’m going back to bed,” Bucky muttered, sliding open the smudged glass door and tromping inside. The hallway, as always, was dark because no one bothered to fix the goddamn lights. His apartment door was unassuming, while Wade’s just sported a Post-It that said _FUCK OFF_. Each one was a constant surprise of profanity, changing from week to week.

“So you don’t want her to set up a date?” Wade asked as Bucky slammed the door closed, instantly muffling Wade’s voice. As he fumbled with his keys and barged inside his apartment, Wade yelled, “You’re gonna die with a dry dick, Barnes!”

Fine. Fine with him.

Bucky sighed, sliding his coat off and throwing it over the back of the couch. He stood there for a minute, eyes closed, before he got to work unhooking his prosthetic. It was relieving to get the weight off of him, and he kicked away his shoes, leaving him in a pair of holey socks that didn’t do much to keep his toes warm.

He clicked on the TV for background noise while he made lunch, noting that he really only had a third of a loaf of bread left and some peanut butter. Was the jelly even good? He didn’t have any lunch meat. Bucky cracked open the jar of strawberry preserves and sniffed at them experimentally.

“…press conference in Manhattan, Tony Stark has announced that the Avengers Tower will possibly be branching to Washington D.C. in what might become a secondary headquarters. The public in D.C. has responded with concern that it might make the city an even bigger target,” some news anchor reported, her hair bright and blonde beneath the studio lights. The man next to her shuffled his papers, clearly anxious to speak. He looked sweaty.

“I think – I think it’s excessive, and that’s absolutely correct. D.C. and New York are two of the biggest hot spots in the US, and you see how well having the Avengers so close to home has worked out for us in the past.”

“Collateral damage, Mark.”

“At what cost? We’re burning more budget than we can afford! And I want to see what the other Avengers have to say about all this. Mr. Stark is always the one on the soap box. Where’s our good Captain to talk about outreaching headquarters?”

“Steve Rogers? There’s a lack of public response for…”

Bucky tuned out whatever she was saying, uninterested in the news. He hadn’t even been in the United States when the hero team had leveled most of New York, and besides whatever popped up on the Internet or national TV, he generally didn’t care.

He slapped together his sandwich, jelly leaking from the sides, and went to sit down on his lumpy couch. With a pointed toe, he poked the remote and switched the channel. The news reporters flashed away from sight, replaced with a daytime comedy movie that he definitely wouldn’t laugh at.

He wasn’t sure which channel was worse.

* * *

 

Saturday evening came and went. Bucky got up long enough to make macaroni on the old gas stove, beneath the yellow lighting. The trash was piling up again.

Sunday came and went. He did not move from bed, other than shuffling to the bathroom. What no one had ever told him, before, was that exhaustion could be felt in your bones, make your jaw ache. It was the kind of tired that made the world slow to a sticky, sapping crawl. Hours were measured by the light outside of his dark curtains.

Yeah, that was the kind of tired that Bucky Barnes was, these days.

 

* * *

 

The week passed by in jilted bursts – he had only taken on three shifts a week, figured it was all he could stand. Every Monday, Wednesday, and Saturday, Bucky showered, pulled his pants on, and stood behind his locked front door for ten minutes trying not to have a meltdown. Pretty impressive, if anyone asked, except no one was asking. It had been a lot simpler when he had gotten a therapist to come to him, not the other way around.

On Friday, he was bone-tired despite having done nothing but lay around all week. Literally, if he wasn’t gritting his way through a work shift, he was sleeping or dozing or just staring blankly at the TV, one arm dangling from the couch. Didn’t have to worry about the other one getting cramped, at least.

Still, he shuffled out to the patio, wrapped up in a blanket that Becca had given him a long time ago. Sewed it herself, out of a squishy blue fleece that had tiny silver stars all over it. It was, quite literally, his comfort blanket.

The autumn evening was chilly, but of course Wade and Al were outside anyway, arguing about who knew what. He hadn’t seen Al in a while, despite her living on the floor above them. She was knocking back a beer, signature sunglasses perched on her nose and worn-down slippers on her feet.

“ – not weird to wear your girlfriend’s clothes. I’m a progressive! Hey, hermit. I’m doing barbeque.”

“He’s _burning_ barbeque,” Al groused, and once again, Bucky felt lucky that they had her as a landlord, considering she couldn’t have cared less about them or what they did.

“Hey!” Wade exclaimed, snapping the tongs he held a few times, “This is Michelin star shit! Primo steaks straight from your local organic chain grocer. Now do you wanna shut up or do you wanna starve?”

“Starve.”

“Been on my ass all goddamn night about – Barnes, these ain’t overcooked, right?” he asked, and lifted the lid off the wobbly, rusted grill. A flume of dark smoke poured out, and Wade flapped his hand hard through it, sputtering. Al, blind as she were, starting laughing, sloshing her beer everywhere. The burnt smell could have been clocked five miles out.

Wade sadly tonged a steak, the meat black and ashy, and he said, “I was shooting for, uh, well-done. This is, well…well-done, well done Wade. Whatever, we can order a pizza.”

And then he flung the steak as hard as he could, and it arced through the air with a weird sort of grace, landing somewhere over their neighbor’s pretentious privacy fencing.

“I’m glad I make the effort to come outside for family dinners,” Bucky said dryly, scuffling over and sitting next to Al. He got the neon yellow chair this time. And now, in a moment of calm, he realized that Wade was wearing a pair of sweatpants that were much too small for him. Pastel pink, with the word _‘Juicy’_ rhinestoned across the ass.

“Uh. Wade?”

“Huh?”

“Those pants are…”

“A bold display against masculinity?”

“I can’t say you’re wrong, huh,” Bucky sighed, and cracked open a beer that had been sitting in the cooler. He leaned back, snuggling into his blanket. It only took a few seconds for the bickering to start back up between the other two, this time about what pizza to order.

Bucky drank, let the bitter beer slip down his throat, couldn’t see any stars through the NYC smog and cloudy skies. S’all right, though, he figured. This was a good day. He was having a good, normal day.

 

* * *

 

In his dream, he’s back in the hospital, hooked up to machines that thrum and beep, tell him that he’s still alive, barely, that he’s made it back. That he’s – and his mother is there, with her broad face and long dark hair, clasping his one good hand and crying softly. _I’m awake, Ma,_ he says, tries to say, but she’s looking at him – no, not at him, at his arm, at the empty space.

 _You look so sad these days,_ she says, but her voice sounds far away, like it’s being spliced from another memory. Maybe it is. Bucky looks down, eyes wide, and this is a dream that he has dreamt many times, too many times, but the feeling is always the same. He forgets that his arm has been taken from him. He feels a gut-punch of horrible realization and shock, and what a weird thing, an absence where there should be a presence.

He starts sobbing, louder than his mother, honest to God _wailing,_ and then it all shatters. The dream falls into shards, bright booms of color and slivers of moments that he couldn’t forget unless they took his head off. _Don’t think you got a brain between those two ears, Barnes, do you? Your head is floating off somewhere._ One brain, broken, and the arm – wasn’t always cut off at the shoulder – had really come off at the bicep –

When Bucky woke up, he woke up hard, and he’d swear that there was a body burning in the room, could smell cauterizing flesh, he was sure, w _as sure._ His face was wet with a mix of sweat and tears, hair plastered to his temples. His chest ached so badly with the squeeze of terror that it felt like it might cave inwards. Some feelings you never got used to.

Light, he needed a light, the dark in the room was overwhelming. He yanked his phone from beneath the pillow, and the knife that always lay right beside it went clattering down onto the cheap wooden floor. His first impulse was to dive off the bed after it, but he flicked on the flashlight of his phone first, gaze sweeping wildly around the illuminated room.

No bodies. No one, no men standing in the corner (which he thought he saw, sometimes, and those were the nights where he left all the lights on). After a second, he dropped the phone onto the comforter and bent hard at the waist to grab the knife from the floor.

Then he just sat there like a whole dumbass, clutching the knife and pulsing with the rapid wave of his own heartbeat. Each breath felt like it was being dragged through his nose, but it meant he was alive. He was fine. Alive. Fine. Alive.

He glanced down, and the stump of his arm was smooth, twisty with scar tissue, professionally trimmed and grafted. Not like the first time, not – not –

Alive. Alive.

Minutes ticked by with Bucky leaning against the headboard, just shining the flashlight into the dark before he could convince himself to move and click on the bedside lamp. And there he sat, not bothering to try and get back to sleep, worrying his dry bottom lip until it bled. When his alarm went off for work at 3, he jumped about a mile out of his skin.

 _Get up, Barnes,_ and so he went, folding himself out of the bed with his creaky joints and dying phone.

There was a brief thought about showering but didn’t want to lock himself into the small room; maybe he could cover up the smell of stale sweat if he put on enough deodorant, a lot of it. Pity to whoever was working next to him today, but no. No small rooms where he was naked and the lock was faulty at best.

He dug through his mounds of laundry and yanked on work clothes that were passable without a wash, black cotton pants and an old tank top that might have once been a crisp white but had gotten a little grey with pilling.

Whatever. He wasn’t going to work to impress anyone at the asscrack of dawn. There was watery remembrance of a time in which he showered every morning and took time to pick an outfit, to shave, but right now he felt exhausted even wrestling his hair into a ponytail. It had taken him an embarrassingly long time to figure out how to put a band in with only one hand, but small victories weren’t lost on him anymore.

There wasn’t any fiber of his being that wanted to walk past that front door, and he paced around in the tiny kitchen, shoes squeaking on the ugly linoleum. Pills. He should take pills, hated medication after all the things the doctors had jammed down his throat. Opened the cabinet door, closed it, then opened it again with a great gust of a sigh and shoved the mostly-full Xanax bottle into his pocket.

In the hallway, he had to brace himself against the wall before sliding the door open. It was odd seeing the patio abandoned, their beer bottles from the night before scattered around. The cool air made him realize how clammy his skin had gotten just from leaving the apartment, and he forced himself to still, holding air in his lungs before he released. Slow.

Outside was cool, breezing against his scruffy face with the sharp crisp of autumn. Crickets chirped in the dark brush, indicate of the early hour when no other sane person would be out and about. Luckily, that wasn’t him. Bucky had learned to appreciate the sullen hush.

He started up north towards Prospect, hardly caring about the couple of miles he had to walk to work. His legs paced fast, clutching his backpack to his shoulder, and it bounced against his hip with a solid _pap pap_ that was oddly comforting. The street was calm in the early dark blue of morning, and his body didn’t feel as tight when it was in motion. His empty jacket sleeve flapped a little at his side, and he wondered vaguely if he should have hooked up his prosthetic again. But it was currently – much to his sister’s chagrin – jammed under his coffee table.  

When he got to work, Michelle was already there, piping macaroons and looking no less stressed than she usually did. Bucky liked her, despite his intimidations; she was the kind of woman he would have been secretly intimidated by even _before_ going into service. She was an outstanding 5-foot nothing with a shaved head and strict attitude. Didn’t talk a lot, which he appreciated, because as soon as he came in she just said, “Morning, James. Get on lacquering the tarts, will you?”

And so he did, and she poured him a cup of black coffee after she pressed it down, strong and thick. She had her music hooked up to the café speakers, and something soul poured out – he thought he recognized the singer’s voice, and he asked after a few minutes, “Lauryn Hill?”

“Solo, yeah,” Michelle replied, and then paused. “You want Fugees?”

Before Bucky could answer, she switched the album, and they listened in silence while he moved on from tarts and got to melting down chocolate on the double boiler.

 _I remember when we used to sit in the government yard in Brooklyn, observing the crookedness –_ and he didn’t notice that Michelle smiled when she saw him nodding along to the song.

Once he got into a working rhythm, it was easier to let the time slip, not so occupied with all the thoughts rattling around in his head. So much of the early morning preparation was about repetition, measuring, scaling, tasks that actually required his concentration. He swallowed a Xanax when he took his smoke break anyway, not bothering to wince when it got a little stuck in his throat, and he could practically hear his old psychiatrist saying, _it’s good to be preemptive, James._

 _Preemptive_ , he thought a little sourly, dragging on his cigarette and knowing he should really quit, _yeah, that’s me._

At 11, Michelle cut him off shift and he didn’t hesitate to go get his things. He had an empty couch at home waiting for him, and a shower, if he could force himself into it. The café wasn’t too busy, so he went to the front, not wanting to go through dry storage and risk the new kid trying to suck him into a conversation.

Two girls were at the counter, giggling and staring at the front door as it swung shut. Bucky could see that someone had just left the bakery, a huge man with golden hair that was now crossing the street quickly. The bakery bag looked ridiculously tiny swinging from his hand.

When Bucky pushed out of the door, the little bell jingling behind him, it was only natural that he turned right, headed home like the usual; the blonde man was a disappearing figure, broad shoulders bobbing in a tight blue shirt. He was headed out towards the subway line, long legs skirting him past the department store, and Bucky thought nothing at all, really.

He wanted to go home.

His pocket buzzed, enough of a vibration to make him jolt a little, and he dug his phone out. Only a few people ever texted him, so he had a pretty keen idea on who it was.

 _Thought you might wanna see this,_ Becca wrote, with a picture attached. It was a flyer, boasting ‘Open Discussion Group’. Manhattan Veteran’s Center. Bucky stared at the text for a moment, nerves giving a shaky squeeze. Before he could text back, another message flooded in.

_Just think about it. Talking is healthy!!!_

He walked for a few minutes, staring at his phone, before he slowly typed back, _yeah I’ll think abt it._

And oh, he’d think about it. Too much, in fact. He thought about it on his way home, let it niggle at the back of his mind while he watched TV, fretted it while he brushed his teeth and stared at the picture from Becca.

Apparently every Thursday there was a group meeting. Manhattan was hardly any kind of a hike, but he couldn’t stand the shake and screech of the subways, and – right, he could call a car. He wished he had someone to ask about this, but there wasn’t really anyone, not anymore. His own decisions seemed faulty but they were about the only opinions he had, save for his family, and that was a whole mess of bias. And there was no way he’d ask Wade.

He let the decision sit stagnantly until Wednesday, frustrated that he couldn’t figure out what to do, veering between _maybe next week_ and _no, now._ Truth was, he had the feeling that if he didn’t get off his ass and do it then he probably never would. Avoidance was kind of his new talent.

Eventually, he tapped down the address in his phone with shaky fingers and set a reminder that he had somewhere to be a 6 PM tomorrow. Worst thing he could do was chicken out and pretend he’d never wanted to go at all, could cancel the Uber he planned to call at any time.

Still, that night he lay awake, kept worrying over different questions in his head. What was the center like, what if he was late and walked in and made a scene? What about the people, would it be awkward? Would it be weird if he didn’t talk? Did he _want t_ o talk? No, no, he didn’t, and even if he did, it would have to be a blunted version of the truth. It was cool in his apartment, but Bucky was sweating a little, tossing under the thin cotton sheets.

When he managed to fall asleep, it was fitful; no solid dreams came to him, but he still woke with a start every hour or so, filled with an anxiety that had no name. He didn’t drag himself from bed until 11, and then he sat outside with Wade for a while, not bothering to mention where he would (or wouldn’t) be going that evening. If Wade noticed that he was practically vibrating out of his skin, he didn’t say a thing about it, tapping away on his junky laptop and filling the space between them with random commentary.

A normal day, except for the fact that Bucky kind of felt like he might puke at any given opportunity. Still, he managed a shower and put on his prosthetic, for some inane reason. If he was going to be surrounded by vets, they wouldn’t ask, but they’d wonder what the whole story was. Everyone always wanted to know the story, like he was going to give them a play-by of some grand act of heroism.

Bucky Barnes wasn’t a hero. He was, however, stubborn as hell, so he slid on a leather jacket and gloves, and that at least would seem normal against the chill of autumn. Before he let himself regret it, he called for the Uber, and circled himself around to the front of the brownstone to wait.

A young boy picked him up, snapback twisted backwards and AUX cord plugged in. Bucky sat in the back, and the kid didn’t even blink an eye while he swapped the music on his phone.

“Still heading to Broadway?” the kid asked (his name was Keith, or something, that’s what the app had told him).

“Yeah.”

“Where at? It’s a big street.”

Bucky hesitated for a moment, before he said, “I’ll tell you where to stop.”

“Sure thing,” Keith the Kid replied, and he peeled away from the curb, humming along to some bass-heavy song that had started up. The car smelled like cigarettes covered by sweet air freshener, and Bucky leaned back against the leather, not bothering to buckle his seat belt. Keith the Kid didn’t try to engage him in conversation, thank god, so he just watched the familiar scenery go by.

Prospect Park was golden and auburn with the waning months, all the trees gone dying, and plenty of people were milling around with their cameras out. The traffic was heavy going into the afternoon, the Manhattan Bridge clogged up; he had called for it an hour earlier than he needed it, knowing that everything would be a mess, but Bucky didn’t mind. He longed to be back at his apartment as much as he was glad to be out, actually _doing_ something. His heart was a jittery creature, not wanting to slow down, anticipating what was to come.

Whatever that was.

When they turned onto Broad, Bucky sat up and said, abruptly, “Just drop me wherever you can pull over.”

“Yeah, you sure?” he replied, but pulled in quickly behind a cabby as it veered out into the street, cutting someone off. The resounding honk was long.

“Thanks for the ride,” Bucky said, meaning it, because conversation had been non-existent, no pestering involved. He stepped out and slammed the door, nodding at Keith the Kid, who stuck his head out of the open window to check the road.

“Yeah, dude, anytime.”

When Bucky checked the app to give the kid a good rating, he smiled, just a little – Keith had been right after all. He trotted down the street, past the other bustling city-goers, women with sharp pumps and men yelling into cell phones. Bucky could feel the blood draining from his face with each step, but he forced himself to keep going, because – well, he had come this far. So what was a little more?

It felt like a thousand miles, those whole few blocks, but the veteran’s center was just a tall building with many, many windows, relatively unassuming in a city full of steel and glass. A huge American flag flew out front, whipped around by the encroaching evening wind. Bucky slid in through the side door, and the front lobby was clean and slick, just like basically any professional lobby. There were a couple of receptionists sitting at the front, but on a tripod was a poster board that said ‘Open Group’ with a big clipart arrow pointing to the left.

Sure, he could follow those directions. Small flyers on the walls led him to a rec room at the end of a long hall, and Bucky ducked in, gaze on the group of people that were fluttering around a big circle of chairs. Men and women, regular as hell, and he hadn’t known what he was expecting from them, but maybe not the normalcy.

He stood by the door for a few moments, staring owlishly before he drew in. He felt sweat at the back of his neck, daring him to bolt and leave this whole production behind. Couldn’t do that, he had come all this way, and his flesh hand flexed nervously on habit.

“Hey,” greeted one of the men by the punch bowl, and Bucky froze. He wasn’t much taller, dark skin and hair cropped close to his head. When he smiled at Bucky, he noticed the gap between the man’s front teeth.

“Hey,” Bucky replied, because that seemed normal, that seemed _chill._

“Haven’t seen you around here before. You come a long way?” the guy asked, tipping the punch ladle against his cup so the red liquid poured in.

“Nah, just across the bridge.”

“Brooklyn?”

“Yeah. South of Prospect.”

“Oh, you _are_ close. Yeah, kinda noticed the accent.”

“Where you from?” Bucky asked, clearing his throat awkwardly in the middle of the sentence.

“Harlem, man. Ain’t a stone’s throw away. I’m living with a friend ‘round the east side now, it’s crazy.”

“Oh,” was all he could come up with, and he felt a surge of panic when he didn’t know what else to say. There was a beat of silence, and he thought he should say something, anything. The other man looked at him calmly with his dark eyes before jutting out his hand.

“I’m Sam,” he said, “Sam Wilson.”

“Bu – James,” he answered, and god, Sam definitely noticed his stumble. All his words were coming out all slow and stilted, and how long had it been since he’d had a conversation with anyone new? His palm must have been sweaty on the shake.

“It’s good to meet you. Well, hey, catch a seat, okay? We’re gonna start soon,” Sam said, and thumbed towards the circle.

“Sure,” Bucky nodded, and moved past him to stiffly sit down in one of the small foldable chairs. A few others were already sitting down, chatting with each other idly, used to being here. Bucky jiggled his leg, heel of his boot bouncing up against the chair leg with a satisfying solidity. A man sat down a few chairs away from Bucky, wearing khaki shorts, and it exposed the whole mess of burn scars that ate up his leg from ankle to knee. He looked away quickly, no interest in staring.

Breathe in, breathe out. Some gazes landed on him, curious of the newcomer, and Bucky did his best to seem interested in the tall plaster ceiling so he wouldn’t have to make eye contact. Really, the ceiling was fascinating.

“Hey, guys, thanks for coming to hang out tonight,” came a newly recognizable voice, and Bucky glanced forward to see Sam settling into a chair in the middle of the circle. Oh. Bucky chewed at his bottom lip, suddenly understanding why Sam talked to him so quickly; of course he was the moderator. Jesus.

“No hot date to make you late this time, huh?” a blonde woman said, smiling, arms crossed over her chest. Sam snorted and raised a hand as if to deflect the comment.

“ _One_ time, and ya’ll don’t let me forget it. And if you wanna know, second date was the charm but three times is a bust.”

A titter of laughter lifted from the group, and Bucky blinked. Everyone was turned in towards Sam, obviously happy with his presence – the one time that Bucky had gone to a group session, everyone had been miserable, clearly unwilling to be there. Context made a whole hell of a difference.

“So, cool, let’s get started. I got a whole spiel for ya’ll today. And, hey, we got someone new,” Sam said, and held out one hand toward Bucky. When every single head turned to him, he stiffened, mouth thinning. Before he had to gag out some kind of lame introduction, Sam just continued, “This is James. No one run him off, okay? I need anyone I can get to drink that nasty punch.”

“I’m still sayin’, we should write a formal complaint and maybe they’ll let us slip vodka into it,” said the guy who had sat next to Bucky, and his voice was rough, but quiet.

“I’m still vetoing.”

“Consider it, is all I’m saying.”

And just like that, the attention was off of Bucky, and Sam was asking if anyone wanted to start and get them caught up on how the week had gone. He deflated a little, relieved that Sam was intuitive enough to know that he had no interest in doing the whole cliché _hi, I’m James/hiiii, James_ group intro. God, he probably would have gotten up and left.

He listened to the group members talk – about their normal days, about stressors. The blonde woman who had teased Sam (Rachel, that was her name, right), talked about having to leave early from work because she had been having increasing panic attacks, didn’t know how to talk to her boss about it.

Someone reminded her kindly to keep up with her meds but didn’t ask if she had been skipping doses; Bucky noticed that Sam didn’t try to tackle everything, only popping in with advice here and there. Some people just needed to unhinge their jaws and vent about how shitty they felt, dumb things that had happened over the week, dealing with family on the upcoming holidays. And Sam nodded, tuned in, but didn’t try to play therapist.

He just listened, and didn’t pry past whatever was coming out of someone’s mouth. Bucky decided that he liked that.  

The hour ticked by, and he realized with increasing intensity that he would be the only one who hadn’t talked. His leg jiggled harder, like he could use it to paddle himself right out of the room. It took a lot of strength to not bolt when Sam laid his eyes on Bucky, eyebrows raised a little.

“James, anything you wanna say?” Sam asked. “No pressure.”

Bucky shoved his prosthetic hand beneath his sweaty thigh, and Sam didn’t track the movement, just kept his eyes steadily on Bucky’s face.

“Uh,” he managed, and swallowed, throat clicking dryly, “no, not – not really.”

“That’s cool. If you think of something, just jump in,” Sam replied, and then moved on. “So we got thirty minutes left. Remember when I said I had a spiel? Yeah, no getting out of that. I think we should talk about how to get more comfortable in places that aren’t really your safe spaces, things like a new job versus home.”

Bucky shifted out of attention a little, still looking at Sam, but his mind drifted as a bubble of shame welled up. He hadn’t wanted to say anything, not really, but he couldn’t help but think that maybe he should have. What was so hard about getting his mouth to open? He could have said anything, didn’t even have to be serious.

The sharp tang of copper flooded his mouth, and he let his bottom lip go, suddenly aware that he had worried it raw enough that it was bleeding. What was Sam saying? Something about adjustment periods. Bucky forced himself to listen to the rest of the talk, but as soon as Sam called time up, he was digging a cigarette from his backpack.

Smoke, he needed to smoke. He stood when everyone else did, but then slipped away quickly. They were mingling, and that definitely was not in his plan. He let the door close quietly behind him, made the trip down the hallway and through the lobby. Dark had fallen outside, and there were less business people on the street, having been replaced with a stream of groups that looked like they were headed out for dinner or clubbing. Bucky sat on the steps beside the courtyard and lit up, letting his head fall to his palm.

It could have all gone worse, he decided. He could have had some kind of freakish meltdown or not come at all. Still, he couldn’t completely shake the feeling that he had somehow fucked it up. They probably smelled the anxiety wafting off of him. Bucky closed his eyes, letting the acrid smoke out from his nose in a long exhale.

He watched the people rush by on the sidewalk, all the college kids laughing and yelling, women in nice cocktail dresses, dripping in jewelry. Going about their lives, doing the whole _thing._ Bucky idly wondered what it would be like, to be one of them again.

He dragged the cigarette down to the cartilage before he ground it beneath his Doc and shoved the butt into his pocket. He wasn’t winning any awards for morality, but a litterer he was not. Sighing, he called for an Uber, suddenly exhausted.

“You come here often?” came a voice behind him, and Bucky glanced over to see Sam walking up, hands shoved in the pockets of his jeans and sporting a slick brown leather jacket.

“Needed a change of scenery,” Bucky replied, which definitely wasn’t a lie.

“How’d you feel about the group?”

Bucky rubbed at the back of his neck, wondering if there was a better answer. He felt a wash of nervousness flood back into him, because Sam was – he was nice, and Bucky didn’t want to say something dumb. Or, worse, not think of anything to say at all. That happened to him sometimes, a complete lack of words, unsure of how to fill a silence.

“It wasn’t bad,” he settled with, and surprisingly, Sam barked out a laugh.

“They’re good people, all of them. I started this group about a year ago, give or take, whenever I moved here from DC. A few of them been around since the beginning, you know?” he said, kicking a little stone off of the sidewalk, into the grass. “Some of us are gonna go get a drink, there’s a quiet bar a couple blocks over. Wanna come?”

“Uh, n – not today,” Bucky replied, and held up his phone uselessly, confused as why Sam would want to ask him out. “My car is coming.”

“You can cancel Ubers,” Sam said, but he seemed amused, full mouth twitching into a smile. “It’s cool, though. Come out sometime, think about it.”

“Sure,” but he really wasn’t sure at all, knew that he’d probably never agree. It was a gallant thought, the idea of him at a bar, laughing and talking over expensive Manhattan drinks in a sticky booth.

Sam bounced down the few steps and headed out to the sidewalk, tossing a wave over his shoulder.

“Hope I see you again next week,” he called, and Bucky watched him disappear down the street, his gait unhurried and light.

Next week. Maybe he would think of something to say.

 

* * *

 

 

That Saturday, it was pouring rain. Bucky still dutifully walked to work, shivering under the wide birth of his umbrella. The cold snap of late October doubled with the rain made his bones feel creaky, the stump of his arm aching. He felt a whole hell of a lot older than 26.

Michelle was in a sour mood, said the rain made for bad business, and Bucky didn’t bother trying to reassure her that nothing could slow down the morning crowd. A little rain wouldn’t stop a swarm of New Yorkers from getting their fresh sweets.

When Toddy came in for her shift, while Bucky was on break, they had to settle for sitting in dry storage together because the back had no awning to speak of. She peeled him an orange and sat, doing a crossword puzzle, occasionally asking him if he knew words for the riddles (answer: no, he didn’t, but he took guesses anyway just to appease her).

“What you been doing all week, B?” she asked, smudging her eraser over the paper to take off a failed word. It left a dirty smear in its wake. He shrugged with his good arm, thumbing another slice of orange away from the round and slipping it into his mouth.

“Not much,” he replied, because he never had anything to report. Except this time, he had done something with this week, hadn’t he? He paused, let the mess of pulp slip down his throat. “I went to a group thing.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah, this – this vet group, over in Manhattan. Wasn’t too painful.”

“Were the nice?”

“Seemed like it. The guy who runs it knew what he was doing,” Bucky replied, and his mouth lifted on the side in a rueful smile. “He asked me if I wanted to go to a _bar_. I can’t even remember the last time I was in one of those.”

“I feel like I’m watching my toddler make friends,” Toddy said, and pointed her pencil at him, eraser-side up. “I’m betting my whole ass that you told him no, but you should say yes next time. A little whiskey would do you good.”

“What do you know about whiskey?”

“I know enough to be right.”

“You sound more like my sister every day,” he snorted, standing up from the wobbly stool he had been folded up on. He brushed the seat of his pants off and raised an eyebrow at her. “Think of more advice to give me later. I gotta get back to the kitchen.”

“If you ever loved me, you’d help me flip chairs on the patio first,” she said, putting her crossword aside. “No one’s gonna want to sit outside with it being so nasty, but Michelle wants me to do it anyway. You know, since they paid _sooo_ much for that awning.”

“Yeah, all 10 feet of it,” he said. “I’ll help. It’ll let me avoid taking stock for a while longer.”

“Procrastination, now that’s the spirit.”

He followed her out through the kitchen and to the front, vaguely uncomfortable being out in the café area with his sleeve pinned up. The prosthetic made his aching even worse on sore days, but the lack of it filling out a sleeve did invite more stares.

The steady stream of people coming through the front door made their small inside area packed, but everyone was too busy staring at the chalkboard and bright display cases to pay much attention to him. Toddy politely scooted by people to clear them a path.

The cacophony of voices and constant dinging of the bell as the door swung open made him twitch, but he ignored his urge to turn and run back to the kitchen. Just a few minutes outside, where at least it wouldn’t feel so cramped, and it’d be done. Bucky watched his feet move over the wooden boards of the floor, keeping close to Toddy’s heels.

Outside, the rain was coming down harder, the street clogged with cabs and storage trucks all honking at one another as if it would make anything flow faster. Someone distantly yelled ‘fucking move it!’, and whatever else that came out of their mouth was drowned out by a clap of thunder. Bucky saw Toddy wince and rub her bare arms before flipping down one of the antique metal chairs.

“You sure you don’t wanna ask Michelle if she wants to reconsider?” Bucky asked, having to raise his voice to be heard over the encroaching storm. Toddy shrugged and kept flipping, so he followed suit, unbothered by the rain as long as it kept him out of dry storage.

They worked hastily, the bustle of the city passing them by. It was regular, and loud, and normal. To him, most things in New York were normal, even the most eccentric sights and sounds. He generally didn’t stop to give most things a second thought, because staying sane in such a huge city meant putting up a mental buffer to process all of the general chaos. But some things couldn't possibly get lost in the background - Bucky froze when he heard a scream cut through the white noise of the Brooklyn bustle.

Toddy paused too, and looked like she was going to ask what was happening before more screams rose from the street, sounding just a block or two off. There was no mistaking the panic, and Bucky immediately moved towards Toddy.

“Bucky?” Toddy asked, voice gone a little reedy, and he reached out to grab her arm when one of the cabs that was parked at the corner of the block suddenly burst into a shower of groaning metal and sparks as a large armored SUV swerved onto the street and hit it dead on. Toddy screamed, the octave piercing right through his ear drum since she had launched herself into his arms.

“Get down!” Bucky yelled, none too gentle when he shoved on her shoulders, forcing her to fall to her knees and crawl beneath one of the sturdy tables. His throat felt thick with the old, familiar adrenaline, the kind that had the power to knock someone sideways if they waited long enough for it to catch up with them.

The SUV that had unceremoniously swung onto their street was hammering its way through the line of traffic, knocking the other vehicles to the side like they were no more than tin cans. Drivers were abandoning their seats in a steady storm, running to avoid the chaos. Bucky grabbed a chair, crouching and swinging it around himself to avoid any debris that might be flung through the air as the vehicle approached.

It was smoking fiercely, obviously having already taken plenty of damage, but there really wasn’t any saving it when all of the tires blew out at once. The body of the vehicle crashed down onto the asphalt, skidding loudly the last 30 or so feet to a dead stop in front of the bakery.

There was one thing to be said about all of his training – fear had become a high, blank wall to him. His mind whited it out as something that was present, but only constantly steeping on the back burner; Bucky hardly flinched when the door of the SUV flung open and a man in a dark suit crawled out. There was blood on his paled face, and he fumbled to pull a gun from his holster; another man, the driver, ran around from the other side. His gun was already out and aimed down the street.

The patrons inside of the bakery were clamoring, just a dull press of noise behind him, and Bucky sidled closer to Toddy. Her hands were pressed over her mouth, face wet with sweat. A helicopter roared close overhead, cutting out the rumble of the motorcycle as it swerved around the same corner that the SUV had just barreled by.

Bucky had lived here all his life, but there weren’t many sights that were quite as shocking as seeing – yes, that was Captain fucking America, deftly avoiding the torn up sections of asphalt as he came racing down the street. Even through the rain, his shield was bright and flashing as he braced it in front of him to block the barrel of bullets that the two men unloaded on him.

The man that had rolled from the SUV first stumbled to the side, up onto the sidewalk to try and get a better angle as the Captain came careening towards them.

 _Too close,_ Bucky’s brain hollered at him, drowning out everything that was happening around him. There was no real thought behind his movement as he flipped up the chair he was holding, muscles straining to get it hefted enough to gain momentum.

“Don’t!” Toddy screamed, but Bucky was already lunging forward, swinging the chair so hard that something in his shoulder strained. It was a comforting weight, like a gun recoiling against his body when he shot, or a fist making purchase. It hit the shooter so hard that he stiffened before he crumpled, the lip of the chair’s seat splitting the back of his head.

The man's partner immediately swung on him, and Bucky saw the erratic tremble of the gun in hand, the wild eyes – it was the look of someone cornered, pulled in two directions at once. The Captain was the biggest threat, but Bucky was closer, only 15 feet between his chest and a bullet.

There was a sluggish beat of time, only half a second that felt like an eternity before the man was blown backwards, gun flying from his hand as the Captain's shield hit him right in the middle of his torso. His body hit the ground with a wet thud, having practically been folded in half with the force.

Bucky realized, dully, that he was still clutching the chair; his breath left him in a harsh shudder as he stood there getting plastered with rain, no longer under the blocking of the awning.

The black Harley screeched to a stop, fishtailing a little as the Captain jammed a foot against the asphalt to brace the speed. The world filtered back to him in a rush, and Bucky was aware of his body’s trembling and the panicked chattering from all of the onlookers that had moved to the sidewalks to try and get out of the way.

Captain America was in suit, but missing his normal helmet, and he looked both terrifyingly large and surprisingly young with his blonde hair dowsed in rain and a gash above his eyebrow.  

Bucky watched him press his fingers to his ear, and he said, “Grand and Atlantic intersection is secure, Nat. Meet at Classon.”

And then he was turning his head, and staring right at Bucky, and all Bucky could manage to do was let the chair clatter to the ground. His limbs felt like liquid, and he thought vaguely that there was no way Wade was going to let him live this down when he saw it on the news. Becca would scream, his mother would cry, and Bucky…well, he couldn’t say he had that many regrets when the Captain’s mouth quirked into a hesitant smile.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys, if you've made it to the end of the first chapter, thank you so much for reading through it! It's been a long time since I've written for the MCU - like, 6 years of a long time - and I had forgotten how much I missed it. I've always really loved Steve and Bucky's relationship but I never got around to writing for it (and also I was intimidated because oh my god, so much Stucky work is amazing). But here I am, finally! I haven't tackled a multi-chapter in a while, but I've done it for MCU before and here's (hoping?) I can suffer through another slow burn.
> 
> FYI! This first chapter was changed HEAVILY from it's original posting since I rewrote the plot, but so many of the elements were the same that I felt like it didn't deserve a delete/reupload. What I wanted fit more with the AU of Steve being Captain America while Bucky is not his childhood friend/is a civilian (aka Shrunkyclunks).
> 
> Anyway, feedback is SUPER appreciated as I go forward; I'd love to hear from you guys!
> 
> For social media, here's my [twitter](https://twitter.com/seafoam_sighs) and here's my [tumblr](http://laceandcaramel.tumblr.com/)! I'm on Twitter the most, but I still pop onto Tumblr now and again!
> 
> Until next time!


	2. Bucky

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Big ol' juicy note: Since the plot changed, the first chapter also changed, so if you read the first chapter back when it was originally uploaded, it's not the same! 
> 
> And I always have to make playlists when I write for a pairing, so here's a [playlist](https://open.spotify.com/user/seafoam_sighs/playlist/4Xfxx2zy4aMYoHJD8itcwB?si=v03hOo0oS9mwvJtDPA1-_g) for Stucky feelings or just if you need new music!

When Bucky woke up, he had no idea of what time it could have been, the blackout curtains that he kept over his one tiny bedroom window hiding the sun. He automatically reached beneath his pillow for his phone, but when he only patted an empty space, he remembered that he had stuffed his cell beneath all the dirty clothes in his hamper last night.

Oh. Oh, god.

“Oh, _god,”_ he muttered, fumbling to yank the comforter over his head. If it wasn’t for the hot pain in his shoulder, he could have passed the whole thing off as a Xanax dream. Bucky burrowed his face into his flat pillow and groaned.

Yesterday, to say the least, had been one whole shitshow. An entertaining one, according to news sources, but a shitshow nonetheless. The coverage of it was everywhere: ‘Unknown Man Jumps into Cap’s Fight!’ was a trending article as of last night, and it was embedded with videos of the whole thing, caught on civilian phones.

He had unwillingly opened the article when Wade texted it to him (one of many frantic texts that were flooding in, along with calls from his mother and Becca, thus the phone in the clothes hamper). It was morbid curiosity that made him play one of the embedded videos, filmed in someone’s shaking hand.

Whoever filmed it had been standing beside the bakery, so when Bucky jumped into frame out of nowhere, he seemed like a crazy person. The speed in which he had managed to bring the chair down on the shooter really explained why his shoulder was throbbing in pain.

Not his best moment. And just as bad, Bucky had been paralyzed when the Captain smiled at him, mostly because he wasn’t sure what he was supposed to _do._ Really just stood there like one whole dumbass. All that Cap had given him was a, “Thanks for that. You’ve got one hell of a swing.”

And then he was roaring back in the direction he’d come from, leaving Bucky to stand on the sidewalk and gape until Toddy dragged him inside. The café had been practically in flames, everyone furiously texting or yelling into their phones, and at the sight of Bucky, most of the comments had suddenly surged toward him.

 “Get out of his way, Jesus!” Michelle had hollered as she urged Bucky past the patrons, bodily shoving a man who was trying to ask Bucky if he was _like, in with the Avengers, dude!_ She herded him into the back and threw open the storage closet, reached to grab his backpack and shove it into his arms. Toddy had been nowhere in sight.

“Get home as quick as you can. Press is gonna be up our asses all day, and soon. I won’t say shit about you, okay?” Michelle urged.

“I – yeah, I’ll go out the backway. Thanks, I mean it. Make sure Toddy’s okay, she got a good fucking scare out there,” he replied, but it felt like his mouth was just flapping, detached from his body.

“I’m gonna shut down for the day, I’ll make sure she heads home. Now, go,” she said, shooing him, and so he went. The back alley where they took their breaks was cut off near the street by people who were milling around the scene, so Bucky quickly ducked the other direction. He’d have to go out a few blocks and circle around to his apartment, but it was better than trying to get past all those nervous, nosy people.

When he had gotten home, it had been silent as ever, eerie in a peaceful way that things are after something odd has happened. He had made food and sat on the couch, refusing to turn on the TV, playing what happened on the street over and over again in his head.

Which, even now – nearly 24 hours later – he was still doing. It had taken him hours to stop the tremors that wracked his muscles.

The news had at least confirmed that whoever the Avengers had been running down that day were part of some big weapons bust, so he didn’t regret hitting the guy. He was more concerned with having his face plastered all over TV and the Internet, because if anyone recognized him from the multiple coverage…Bucky wasn’t exactly interested in chatting with a bunch of strangers.

He had been garnering some peace for himself in his routine, so of course he had to be the one to ruin it. With a grunt, he rolled himself out of bed, trying to keep his shoulder as still as possible. He dug his phone out of the clothes hamper, more than a little anxious to see what the screen would look like.

48 text messages. 22 missed calls. Most of them were from Becca and his mom, a few from Toddy and Michelle. Asking if he was okay, what had happened, why the hell he wasn’t answering.

He wandered into the living room after pulling on a pair of sweatpants, and normally he’d make an attempt at breakfast before settling in to watch TV. Doing that felt weirdly avoidant, somehow. What he _should_ do was answer everyone who had contacted him and go see his sister.

Just the thought of it was exhausting, but he had to admit that the break from monotony was relieving. He had been wondering if he’d start rotting on that damn couch.

Bucky rubbed his eyes, and his phone vibrated in his hand before he could even get around to answering the ones he already _had_. A text message flooded in from Wade, and he squinted.

_weird neighbor: ok i’m coming in_

He raised his eyebrows, and then looked up when his (locked) doorknob started jiggling back and forth, rattling around harshly.

Bucky let Wade struggle for a minute or so before he asked, loudly, “What are you doing?”

There was a long pause before Wade replied from the other side of the door, “Trying to pick your lock.”

 “You know I have 3 deadbolts, right?”

“I’m working with a bobby pin, twinkledink, I gotta get the knob unlocked first.”

With a sigh, Bucky unwillingly went to unlock his door; as soon as he cracked it, Wade barged in, Crocs squeaking against the dull wooden floorboards.

 “Come in,” Bucky muttered, slamming the door and locking it again while Wade flopped down on the couch. Wade had been inside of Bucky’s apartment about a total of three times, and Bucky really wasn’t looking forward to that count going up.

“Thanks, I did.”

“What do you want?”

 “Only to spend time with my favorite, handsome neighbor,” Wade said, and when Bucky crossed his arms, he continued, “Why the fuck do you think I’m here? Gimme the story, the sip. If you’d have answered my texts I wouldn’t have had to break in here.”

 “I let you in.”

“I would have gotten in. Eventually,” he replied, and took a second to look around. “Wow, Barnes, you would make a terrible housewife.”

“Don’t plan on wearing an apron anytime soon,” Bucky said dryly, walking to join Wade on the couch with a respectable cushion between them. The apartment was by no means nice, but with some upkeep, it could have been charming in an old-timey kind of way.

Instead, he knew what Wade was seeing: piles of dirty dishes in a kitchen with its old ugly yellow linoleum, the scraped up coffee table holding empty beer bottles and scraps of trash, bare decoration.

The only thing Bucky really had up was an old drawing Becca had made him, magnetized to the fridge (stick figures of them holding hands in a? meadow? golf course?). And on one of the living room walls, a painting of the family cabin that had belonged to his father. ‘Upkeep’ wasn’t much his forte anymore.

“So you saved Captain America’s ass?”

“No. I just hit some guy with a chair.”

“The guy that was trying to kill...Captain America.”

“Well, yeah,” Bucky replied, rolling his eyes. “It just happened, what do you want me to say? I was stuck outside on shift and the guy was shooting like 5 feet away from my face. It freaked me out. I wasn’t really trained to stay still when something like that’s going on.”

“So no trying to impress Mr. Spangles and join the Avengers?”

“Really?” he snorted. “Nah.”

“Hey, I believe you. Figured a guy who doesn’t want to leave his apartment doesn’t really wanna go avenging, saving babies and blowing up druglords, or whatever the fuck they do. That’s just what the internet was saying,” Wade said, shrugging. “So that’s it?”

“That’s it.”

“Wow. That was more boring than I expected. Okay, we can move on, I’ll just keep reading the gossip comments about you when I’m sitting on the toilet. So anyway, there was another reason I came over.”

“You - ”

“No, I won’t touch your dick,” he cut Bucky off, holding up a hand and ignoring the way Bucky’s eyes practically rolled into the back of his head. “I’m gonna be gone next weekend. My future bride and I are gonna go look at – yes, please, applaud – an apartment. Together. And I take back the applaud thing. You could just slap your leg.”

“You have three seconds to finish what you were saying before I kick you out.”

“Will you feed Nutty Buddy?”

“What,” Bucky said flatly.

“You know. My cat.”

“Since when do you have a fucking cat?”

“Since a week ago,” Wade said, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

“And it’s name is Nutty Buddy.”

“That’s his formal name. You can call him Nutty. Or Buddy. Or asshole.”

Bucky waited, expecting a punchline or something more, but this was _Wade_ and it only took a few seconds of earnest silence before he realized his neighbor was completely serious. He let out a long-suffering sigh, which Wade apparently took as a ‘yes’, because he dug a key out of the pocket of his jeans and threw it at Bucky’s lap.

“You’re the best,” he said. “A real stand-up guy.”

“Thanks, I’m aware. At least leave a note out so I know what he eats.”

Whatever dumbass thing that Wade was no doubt about to say was cut off the sharp knock at the door, followed by a frantic, “Bucky?”

“Becca?” he asked loudly, stumbling off the couch as the knocking continued. “Hold on, jesus! I’m coming!”

“Don’t _jesus_ me, you snot!” And when he flung open the door, there was his sister, looking piping mad and bundled in a big NYU hoodie that had a light stain on the front. Her dark hair was smashed into a ponytail, the set of her frown achingly familiar. Bucky didn’t have much time to brace before she launched into his arms to crush him in a hug.

“You haven’t answered any of my messages,” she muttered into his shoulder, and he hardly winced when she leaned back to cuff him on the side of the head. “What were you thinking?!”

“I think this is my cue to go,” came Wade’s voice behind him, and he hustled towards the door with a nod at Becca. She gave him a half-hearted nod back, because admittedly, most people who met Wade weren’t his biggest fans and Becca was no exception.

When she had first met Wade, it had been when she’d been helping Bucky move in (which really meant she had been doing all the work, because he had been half drugged out of his mind and sliding listlessly against any wall he stumbled into). Wade had insisted on helping her move boxes, even though she had said _no, really sir, it’s okay,_ but of course Wade had done it anyway and of course he had dropped and shattered a whole box full of dishes. Within the first five minutes.

“Don’t forget to check on asshole!” Wade said as he brushed by, and Bucky honest-to-god forgot for a second that he was talking about the cat. The cat that Wade apparently had. Right.

“Trust me, I won’t,” Bucky replied dryly, and slammed the door shut as soon as Wade stepped out.

“So, what? Are you guys, like, hanging out now?” Becca asked, pulling her purse off her shoulder and tossing it onto the coffee table. It knocked over an empty beer bottle, which went rolling onto the floor. “Jeez, Buck, since when’s the last time you cleaned?”

“Since when’s the last time I needed my kid sister nagging me about my cleaning?” he asked without any real heat as he bent to pick up the bottle, at least having the good grace to be a little ashamed.

“You couldn’t even pick up your phone,” she hissed, and oh, there was real irritation there. He glanced at her and saw that her brows were tucked into the familiar furrow that meant business.

“Hey, Becks, I’m sorry,” he said, and meant it.

“Ma had to call _me._ She saw you on the news, Bucky! And asked me if I had talked to you, but I hadn’t, so I promised her I’d come over today if we hadn’t heard anything from you. Just – just what were you thinking?”

“I wasn’t thinking much of anything,” he replied, and Becca flopped down onto the couch with a huff. “I came back right after it happened, and I just needed to not…handle it. I stopped looking at my phone, I actually am sorry for that, but I ain’t sorry that I did the whole thing in the first place.”

“You had a _chair,_ Bucky.”

“I’m glad all I had was a chair,” he said, and Becca didn’t respond to that, blue eyes turning to look at the blank TV. The weight of what he didn’t say – _because what if I had had a knife, or god forbid, a gun_ – was tangible, and something that he hadn’t been able to completely kick out of his mind.

“Are you okay?” she asked, and instead of sounding mad, she just sounded tired. Bucky paced a little, back behind the couch so that she had to twist to see him.

“I knew where I was, if that’s what you’re asking. Didn’t think I was back in the fighting or some shit, just couldn’t stop myself.”

“I mean, that’s good to know, but that wasn’t really what I meant. I meant, are you _okay_?”

He pressed the palm of his hand against his forehead and rubbed it a little, eyes closed. Fighting was the easy part, now, just a part of muscle memory and years of training that had been more or less beaten into him. It was the after, when everything was quiet and safe, that hurt more than the during. Like a broken bone that only protested once the adrenaline wore off, and never got set quite right.

“Yeah,” he replied, “I’m okay. Just feels weird. Feels like I did something weird.”

“You did what you thought you had to, I guess,” Becca said, and he didn’t look at her face, knowing that it would be too kind. Becca always tried to understand, even when she couldn’t. “And I’m proud, you know, in a way? You never were a person who just watched things happen. Even if you _are_ a dumbass who doesn’t know how to return calls.”

“Didn’t mean for you to have to come all the way over here,” he said, because Becca lived near the NYU campus in Manhattan, sharing a tiny apartment with two other girls who were suffering through grad school the same as her.

In some other world, they might have both struggled through the hell of college, but Bucky ended up filling out papers for the military instead of school applications.

A fat lot of good that had done him.

“S’okay. I never get to see you, anyway,” she said, leaning to grab the TV remote. She flicked it on and immediately changed the input so that she could pull up Netflix. “If you feel that bad, I need to refill my metro card.”

“I got you,” he replied, clambering over the back of the couch to sit next to her, and she spared him a sidelong glance as she kicked off her shoes.

“So was Captain America as pretty in person as he is on TV?” Becca asked.

Bucky stuffed his feet beneath him and pointedly didn’t look at her when he replied, “Yeah, he was. Kind of freakish.”

“He looked freakish?”

“No, I mean, it’s freaky that he looks the same in real life. I thought the guy would be at least thirty percent uglier, or something,” Bucky said, smiling when Becca laughed disbelievingly.

She was one of few people in his present life that knew he wasn’t exactly a straight man, something Bucky had discovered accidently and quickly sometime in high school. Becca had been the first one to find out, anyway, since she had walked in on Bucky and Joey Backard when they had hands down each other’s pants.

She had screamed, and Bucky had screamed, and Joey went home, but it only took a couple hours for her to appear at his bedroom door and say, _so that was awkward._

“That’s so cool. I thought he was just crazy photogenic,” she said, talking while she flipped through the streaming genres. “But don’t forget that I’m still lowkey annoyed with you. And before I put anything on, you need to call mom.”

“Now you’re laying it on thick.”

“Call. Mom,” she gritted out, ignoring Bucky’s groan of protest, because he loved his mother to death but the woman was scary as a snake when she was mad. He endured Becca kicking him and wheedling before he relented and called her, unsurprised that she picked up almost immediately.

Becca smiled and put on some cook-off show while she listened to Bucky get chewed up and spit out for ten long minutes.

 

 

* * *

 

 

By the next day, Wisteria was still shut down by Michelle’s orders, so Bucky had a whole lot of nothing to do. The only nice thing was not waking up at 3:30 in the morning on a _Monday_. Still, he felt the gnawing guilt to be at least a little productive after Becca had spent the better part of the afternoon nagging at him.

He attempted to clean up the apartment because, yeah, he had been meaning to get around to it. He gathered all the trash that had been laying around, tossed rotting food from the fridge, tied it all up in big plastic bags and heaved them onto the street for pick-up.

And dishes. Somehow dishes were better than the thought of vacuuming or bleaching the bathroom. He ran the sink full of soapy water and started scrubbing at crusted pans, bowls with congealed soup at the bottom, mismatched cups and equally mismatched silverware. He scrubbed it all until his hand was pruney, his prosthetic working just enough that he could brace the dishes or move the steel wool.

By the end of it, he was exhausted, like he’d been doing chores for days instead of an hour. Considering that he normally laid around doing what his ma would call _a whole lotta nothin’,_ this was a big step up.

Bucky dried his hand, unhooked his prosthetic, and fell face first into the couch. He didn’t want to think about how distastefully weird the last few days had been, or how blurry videos and photos of his face were being discussed over the Internet. He tried, instead, to think about Becca’s reassurance of _‘they’ll just something else to gossip about and move on. You’ll be okay, Buck_ ,’ and yeah, she was right. Probably.

No one actually really cared about some crazy dude throwing chairs. They only cared because it (barely) involved Captain America.

Bucky swept some hair away from his face, rolled over on the couch, and dozed off feeling hesitantly sure his life would smooth back over. As smooth as it could be, anymore.

 

 

* * *

 

 

“Barnes!”

Bucky snapped awake at the thunderous knocking at the door, Wade yelling for him.

“What?” he managed to croak out, groggy and disoriented. When had he fallen asleep? It was dark outside.

“You got some mail! I just - look, Jesus, I gotta go to work!”

Mail? Bucky never got mail, besides bills. And Wade would leave those rotting in their conjoined mailbox, so why was he playing delivery boy?

Wade shoved a plain white envelope under the door, and then added a sarcastic, “You’re welcome!” before stomping off down the hall.

Bucky pushed his hair out of his face and sighed, slowly making his way off of the couch, aware that several joints were cracking at once. Jesus, he was only 26. He picked up the envelope and squinted: addressed to James B. Barnes, so...but there was no return address.

He fell to his ass on the floor beside the door, bracing the envelope against his thigh and ripping it open. Inside was just a piece of notebook paper, and when Bucky unfolded it, his eyes drank in the whole thing, picking out a few sparse words here and there. The handwriting wasn’t familiar.

“Oh, holy shit,” he whispered, catching the formal signature before he started to speed read, heart kicking up a storm.

> _Mr. Barnes (or James),_
> 
> _Hopefully this letter finds its way to you. I wanted to write you with my thanks for what you did on Saturday, off Atlantic. I know plenty of people wouldn’t have done a thing, even if they could. I didn’t get to thank you then, so I’m doing it now. And you really do have a hell of a swing._
> 
> _Sorry for the news coverage - take it from me, they’ll get bored soon enough._
> 
> _Steve G. Rogers (Capt. America, just in case) - >_

Bucky stared down at the letter. It had a faded coffee stain next to the scribbled signature, and sure as hell, Captain America had taken time out of saving the world (or whatever he did besides that) to send Bucky a personal thank you.

And there was a tiny doodle of Wisteria’s storefront, the inky lines dark and steady. He had drawn it in excruciating detail, from the tiny flowers on the shop’s wooden sign to the delicate lattice window stains.

He was definitely getting this framed.

Per the request of the arrow next to the signature, Bucky flipped the paper over, and on the back was an address. It was somewhere in Manhattan, nowhere he recognized, so he struggled his phone from his pocket and typed the address into the search engine.

Up popped some neighborhood, the kind with antique stoops and actual trees on the sidewalk. Captain America (or should he call him Steve?) had written the address for...an apartment? It was very obviously not on the envelope for what he guessed was a privacy thing, but either way, he wanted Bucky to have the return address.

Did he want him to write back?

Bucky laid the paper down on the floor in front of him and chewed absentmindly on the rough hangnail of his thumb, trying to understand. He was sure the guy got dozens of fan letters each day, and struck him as the type of person to actually reply when he had time.

But it wasn’t like Bucky had written him – or was even a fan. He was just a guy who had happened to pick up a chair, but the Captain had thanked him anyway. And here he had thought the whole nice-guy American sweetheart thing had been at least half of an act.

With a grunt, he hauled himself to his feet, clutching the letter. His shoulder throbbed dully, and he tried to focus on holding it steady when he padded into the kitchen and stuck the letter on his fridge with a spare souvenir magnet, right next to Becca’s drawing. He’d figure out what to do with it later.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

The next day, Bucky picked up a pen and put it to a piece of paper that he had ripped from a spiral notebook.

 

> _Not sure how I should address this,_
> 
> _No need for thanks. I don’t mind swinging a chair if someone’s going to pull out a gun. Your ~~drawng~~ drawing (I swear to god I know how to spell) of the bakery was good payment. Not every day a guy gets a drawing from a national icon._
> 
> _Stay safe out there if you’re gonna keep driving into bullets._
> 
> _\- James Barnes (Bucky)_

He leaned back, studying his own messy handwriting and wondering if it was a good reply. Too casual? Not casual enough? If he worried about it for too long, he wouldn’t send it at all. It seemed to be lacking something, but it’s not like Bucky knew the guy; there wasn’t much to say. He tapped his foot a few times, running through possible re-writes in his head, before thinking back to the original letter.

Hesitantly, he pressed the pen back to page and started scribbling in the bottom left hand corner, where Steve’s doodle of the shop front had been. Bucky was a shitty artist, but it was easy enough to draw a little chair at the bottom.

And maybe it wasn’t the perfect reply, but it at least seemed complete.

 

 

* * *

 

 

All things considered, life was normal. Almost disappointingly normal.

Bucky went back to work on Wednesday, and took his break in dry storage to avoid any journalists or interviewers who were hanging around outside. There were construction trucks parked all along the street, fixing the broken asphalt and sidewalk. It was busier than usual in the café, a mix of the normal crowd and people who wanted to frequent a hot spot of gossip.

Michelle hadn’t prodded at him – asked him if he was doing okay, if he had been bothered (yes, he was fine, and no, no one seemed to know who he was); when she must have figured he was stable, she sent him right to cutting dough without any fuss, turning on her music as per usual.

He didn’t even spend time with Wade, who was gone the coming weekend as promised. When Bucky went into Wade’s apartment on Friday, he found Nutty Buddy sitting on the kitchen counter, a fluffy black cat with a sweeping tail and big yellow eyes.

It was also one of few times that he had been at Wade’s, so he put down food for the cat and then wandered around, looking at all the knick-knacks that Wade kept scattered around: action figures, ticket stubs and movie posters taped to the walls, a disturbing amount of framed photos that featured him and Vanessa.

Some of the pictures were from back when he had a full head of hair and his skin was smooth as anything. Bucky had picked up a framed Polaroid and stared at the old Wade, before whatever happened had happened. He still didn’t know why Wade was covered head to toe in burns (what he assumed were burns), and he didn’t ask. The man in the Polaroid was nearly unrecognizable.

He set the photo right back down to its rightful place and left. Nutty Buddy sent him off with a little mewl.

On Saturday at work, he saw Toddy for the first time since the last week and let her hug him, and they just…went on. Did their work, took a break and did her crossword together, and that was that. He had shaved off his slight beard and walked around with the hood of his jacket up, but no one stopped him on the street. No one recognized him.  

Had the memory not been so fresh, Bucky could have assumed that nothing had ever happened. He went to his shifts and the weather got colder and he had sent his letter but heard nothing back. No second letter from Steve Rogers. No more word.

By the next Thursday, when he realized that life was going on as it had been and wasn’t going to get much more interesting, Bucky called an Uber and got a ride to the VA Center for the group meeting. As of the last two weeks, he was feeling stagnant, strangely restless. For the first time in a long time, he wanted to be out of his apartment.

Even having missed the last meeting, it didn’t really seem like time had passed. All the people who had been in the first meeting he had attended were back, chatting over the bad punch or sitting down in the creaky foldable chairs. The man with the burns up his leg waved at Bucky, and Bucky held a hand up in reply. Sam Wilson was sitting at the same chair he had been in last time, foot propped and bouncing on his knee, texting on his phone.

Bucky sat down across from him in the circle, and Sam glanced up at him with a stare that was hard enough to make Bucky frown. He wasn’t one for losing a staring match, so he kept Sam’s gaze until Sam had to turn his head away to greet the woman who sat down next to him, all smiles.

It was just _strange._ Through the entire meeting, Sam kept moving his eyes over to Bucky, searching, like he was lost in a crowd. It made Bucky shift uncomfortably in his seat, palm sweating against his jean-clad thigh, not understanding. It was impossible to concentrate on what everyone was saying. The minutes drew out, like they had in a high school class or a rooftop post. God, he hated when anyone stared at him.

He stayed silent the entire meeting, and this time, Sam didn’t ask him if he wanted to speak. He just launched right into his spiel of the day, and god only knew what it was about. Bucky was itching for a cigarette, but he wasn’t about to draw attention to himself by walking out in the middle of Sam’s advice.

As soon as he was sure Sam was done, though, he stood from his seat so fast that the chair clattered a little, and he turned away from the notice that drew. He rushed out, fumbling his cigarette pack from his bag and lighting up once he hit the chill of the evening air.

 Bucky shoved the fuming cigarette into the corner of his mouth and pulled out his phone to call for an Uber. The wait time was longer than it normally was, most drivers clogged up in traffic. But at least he was outside, and he figured it was better to worry in the fresh air than to worry in a glorified meeting room.

It was a fact that he was more paranoid these days, but he definitely wasn’t imagining the fact that Sam had been staring (or purposefully _not_ staring) at him for the entire hour. Bucky was sure that he hadn’t done something wrong, and nothing had changed about his face besides a clean shave, and it didn’t seem likely that anyone would care that he missed a meeting.

 _What the fuck,_ he wondered, and it was like a summoning – behind him, a familiar voice called out, “Hey!”

And when Bucky looked over his shoulder, Sam was jogging towards him, back in his leather jacket and wearing an annoyingly friendly face. Bucky took a drag of his cigarette and only raised his eyebrows in response, ignoring the hard clench of his shoulders.

“Was worried I’d miss you before you took off,” Sam said, crouching next to Bucky where he sat on the concrete steps. He smelled like cologne, sharp and sweet.

“I’m here,” was all he could come up with, and Sam smiled enough to flash that tooth gap.

“So do you really go by James?” he asked, “Or is it Bucky?”

Bucky stilled, meeting Sam’s dark eyes. He blew smoke from the corner of his mouth and responded, slowly, “Depends on who’s asking.”

“Steve Rogers is asking,” Sam replied, and when Bucky didn’t say anything, he continued, “You know, our resident man in patriotic tights.”

“I know who he is.”

“I’m his roommate.”

“You serious?” Bucky asked, and he was torn between thinking that this was either a very elaborate joke, or the truth. He didn’t know which was easier on his health.

“As a heart attack. We met in D.C., when I was still livin’ there and he was on duty. I came back to New York to try training with him, and you know, I wanted to come home. Been working with the group as a side thing to keep me sane, I told you last time I been here for a while.”

“Okay,” Bucky said dumbly, because that was all he could think of, and Sam let out a bark of laughter at what must have been a pretty slack expression. He dug his hand into one of the many pockets on his jacket and pulled out a tightly folded Post-It note to hand to Bucky.

“That’s his number,” Sam said. “Sorry for starin’ at you so much during the meeting. I was trying to figure out if you were actually the chair guy. You look a lot different without the mysterious 5 o’clock shadow thing going on. Anyway, take that. Not saying you should text him, but you should text him.”

 “Not to be a dick, but how do I know you’re telling the truth?”

“Nah, that’s fair. You sent him a letter, right? With the, uh – the chair drawing on the bottom?”

At that, Bucky didn’t know what to say, too stunned to really say _anything._ Of all the scenarios his brain had conjured up to explain why Sam had been staring at him six ways to Sunday, this definitely had not been one of them. He dropped his cigarette to the ground and pressed the heel of his boot down to snuff it out.

“Hey, Sam!” someone called, and they both turned to see some of the group members coming out of the front doors, their faces washed stark by the flood lights that the center kept on all night.

“Guess you’re not coming out tonight?” Sam asked, not unkindly.

“Why are you giving me his number?” Bucky asked quickly, ignoring Sam’s question. Sam took it in stride, simply shrugging.

“’Cause I think ya’ll would have something in common. Just a guess. And if we’re being honest, I’m only one man. I can’t teach him everything that his old ass has missed in the last 70 years,” Sam said. He stood, knees making a soft cracking noise, and he grunted. “Goddamn, I’m falling apart.”

“I – okay,” he said, because his mouth wasn’t connected to his brain and the others were walking up, chattering to each other and smiling.

“You coming out, James?” one of the women asked, and what was her name, Laura? Lana?

“Not tonight. Gotta catch my ride. Thanks, though,” he replied, standing. His phone chimed from his pocket, probably letting him know that his Uber was pulling up within the minute.

“We’ll get him out one night,” Sam said, and knocked his knuckles gently against Bucky’s good shoulder. “See you later, man.”

And he didn’t say anything more about the number, but he raised his eyebrows knowingly before he turned away, joining the group as they were milling down the sidewalk to go to the bar. Bucky watched them go for a moment before he jogged down the steps and headed toward the street, the Post-It note burning a hole where it was still clutched in his fist. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THANK YA'LL if you made it to the second chapter, whether you stuck with it from the original or are just reading! I really struggled to update because the plot was juuuust not working with me, but once I took a different direction WOAH all my inspiration came back. I'm excited to keep going! This is still a POV-alternating story, so next time we'll be with Steve, and oh man am I ready to write for him. 
> 
> Comments/kudos/yelling at me are all super appreciated, and here's my [twitter](https://twitter.com/seafoam_sighs) and here's my [tumblr](http://laceandcaramel.tumblr.com/)!
> 
> Until next time!


	3. Steve

It was cold and practically empty when he blew through, and there’s a man floating on the conservatory pond in his little service kayak, netting out the dead leaves and algae from the surface. All of the trees had turned to brilliant oranges and reds, shedding everywhere.

Central Park was peaceful at best, bustling at the busiest, volatile at the latest. He’s always up and running by 6 in the morning, sometimes with Sam in tow, like it was back in D.C. They both can have different routes, depending on the day, and this morning he’s alone. The sun hadn’t risen yet, just a low burning on the horizon, but he’s already passed most of the park and winds up for another loop.

It felt good. Familiar. Most of the time, Steve couldn’t recognize New York for what it was. His adjustment period had, admittedly, been unorthodox; coming out of the ice didn’t really include vacation time, not for someone like him. He went right back into work and that was the way it had mostly stayed.

Besides smaller bursts, this was the most down time he’d had since the newest base had been built in Upstate (and he still had trouble believing that everything had happened in such a short time, if he was being honest). There was always someone to fight or something to destroy, and now it was just Steve. Steve, constantly wandering around a city of millions, living on and off with people much like him.

It’s only him running up the steep hill, under the old veranda and down the rock incline; only him winding the way across the hilly paths with the skyscrapers holding themselves into a steady backdrop of the sky.

On his second loop, the man in the kayak had tied it to the slight ledge around the pond and he waved at Steve, and Steve wasn’t sure if it was because he recognized him or if he was just a rare friendly stranger. Steve raised a hand in reply.  

He kept running, and running, until he was breezing by normal joggers and dog walkers and street vendors. It could take a couple of hours to make his legs burn, but he doesn’t stop until his calves have started a slow sizzle that actually made him feel like he’d put in effort. He slowed down near one of the main gates, sweat just starting to trickle down from his hairline.

Steve sat heavily on one of the black metal benches, pulling his phone from the zipped pocket of the joggers that Natasha had gotten him (he couldn’t have cared less about modern fashion, but admittedly, all of his nicest clothes were either gifted or suggested from Nat).

He had a text from Sam, and Steve opened it up, trying not to feel guilty that it was from an hour ago.

_Sam: we’re out of coffee b/c SOMEONE keeps forgetting to write it on the list_

_Sam: ur on grocery duty tonight_

_Sam: but it made me walk to oslo and the cute girl was working again so i guess i should say thanks ;)_

Steve rolled his eyes, but quickly typed back: _Groceries are on me but you ARE welcome._

He went to lock his phone, but another text alert came in, making it buzz in his hand. Steve swiped back to his text threads, eyebrows furrowing.

_Unknown: Hey_

_Unknown: Is this Steve??_

His index finger hovered over his keyboard, and he hesitated to respond. Hardly anyone had his personal number, and he kept it as locked down as he could; not a wrong number, since they were asking for him, obviously. After a few seconds of debating, he replied with a quick and concise, _who is this?_

And then he waited a good minute, but no reply came, not even with the little bubbles that indicated that the other person was typing. Different kind of phone, maybe? Steve locked his screen when it was clear that he wouldn’t get an immediate reply and stood, ready to meander his way back to the apartment.

He had slowly and uncomfortably gotten used to how _busy_ New York was – not that it had ever been quiet, but this century was leagues away from his. And Manhattan was a hell of a different beast, even compared to the other boroughs. If he ever forgot that, Saturday on Fifth Avenue reminded him. He had to walk a good length of it to get back to the neighborhood street, past all of the museums and Central Park gates.

The Met’s stairs and fountain were already covered with people despite the fact that it didn’t open for another hour, and he slowed, watching the random person laugh or take a selfie with their friend, all their mouths moving but blending into the buzz of chatter. He walked through the crowds, hood up, allowing himself to stare at the huge arches and red flags with the golden MET embroidery.

Even these past couple of years, he still hadn’t made the time to go, along with plenty of other places. He constantly told himself, _next weekend,_ or _after the next mission,_ but then he got distracted and it all started over again. Sam called him avoidant; Steve called himself busy.

Once he got off the mainway and was back into the avenues, he let himself relax, less worried about being recognized. Steve was one of the first to admit that his selfies with people who stopped him were notoriously awkward-looking; Tony claimed that it helped feed into his ‘image’, but all it did was make Steve aware of how often he blinked or moved his head right when the camera went off.

It almost made him miss the USO tours. Almost. At least then he had set poses. But this century had given him PSAs to do, which were just as horrible, so he wasn’t about to compare.

He shuddered just thinking about it, and the bellman standing outside one of the luxury apartment complexes gave him a strange look. Steve hurried past him, once again grateful that the apartment that he and Sam shared didn’t have a _bellman –_ it had been hard enough for him to be convinced to rent the place. But Tony owned the building and was letting them rent it on the cheap, so here he was, living on and off in the Upper East Side.

Steve still wasn’t convinced that the whole thing wasn’t a fever dream. Their street was lined with elaborate buildings that had iron-wrought fences and ivy crawling up the walls, big sun windows and pillared doorways. It all had that kind of old money atmosphere that made his poor Brooklyn-born ass just _bristle._  

He dug out his key and jogged up the steps in front of their apartment, let himself in through the heavy main door. The downstairs hallway was the main level, and it was vacant, since hardly anyone could afford to rent a place like this right now. He and Sam lived on the second floor, so Steve made his way up the metal spiral stairs and let himself in.

As soon as he went in, reggae hit him right in the face, the surround sound speakers making the music flow through every inch of the apartment space. He toed off his sneakers immediately, perpetually scared that he would scuff the shiny wooden floors. Meanwhile, Sam was sliding around in a pair of socks, singing along with Steel Pulse (who Steve knew only because Sam had told him about twenty times).

“I see that coffee kicked in,” Steve commented, shrugging off his jacket and hanging it on the coat rack near the door.

“It’s a day of celebration, man,” Sam said, spinning around to look at Steve, spreading his arms wide. “I got a date!”

“With Oslo girl?”

“With Oslo girl, whose name turns out to be Imani. I knew she was throwing me looks. These charming gap teeth don’t just sit around to do nothing.”

“Yeah, you’re a real charmer,” Steve replied, smiling as he passed by Sam to head for his room. “That’s great, though. When are you going out?”

“Tonight. Hey, you still got the cologne you borrowed from me?”

“Yeah, it’s beside the sink,” he said, and Sam detoured in there to grab the glass bottle. Steve emptied out the contents of his pockets onto his bed – wallet, keys, phone, a random nickel – and yanked his shirt off. He glanced down when he saw his phone light up, and grabbed it.

He blinked, unsure if he was reading the texts on the screen correctly.

_Unknown: it’s bucky. Barnes?_

_Unknown: if this is the wrong number, my bad_

Steve felt his mouth go a little dry as he stared at the words, more confused than anything. The letter that James – no, Bucky – had sent him was still sitting on the dining table, alongside all of Steve’s failed attempts to write back. Because he had _wanted_ to reply, but what do you say to a guy you don’t know (but wanted to know)?

And here was an opportunity slapping him in the face, but he felt too dumbstruck to understand it. Steve heard Sam come into the room behind him, talking about the date, but he couldn’t have repeated the words back to him.

“…and anyway, I don’t know when I’ll be back. Steve? Hey,” Sam said, looking around Steve’s arm to see what he was staring at, and he let out a sharp bark of laughter. “Shit, he actually did it.”

“Did what? What?” Steve asked, “Why is this guy texting me?”

“You can just call him Bucky, Steve. We both know you just wanna say it.”

“I’ve only talked to him once. In a letter.”

“He’s not – okay, I’m not gonna humor that,” Sam said. “He goes to my discussion group. I thought I recognized him in the press coverage but I wasn’t sure until he showed up for the last meeting. So I gave him your number.”

“ _Why?”_ Steve asked, not believing the chances of the two somehow knowing each other in the entire city.

“Because it’s the 21st century and you’ve been trying to write him another letter like you’re still in the world war. Listen, Steve, if you wanna get to know the guy, here’s your chance. He’s a vet, he’s from Brooklyn, I got nothing else to give you.”

“He’s from Brooklyn?”

“Jesus Christ, is that all you got out of everything I just said?”

“No,” Steve replied, sitting on the edge of his bed. His phone had darkened from disuse, so Steve unlocked it again to stare at the texts as if that would spur him into action. Sam crossed his arms, waiting for Steve to speak, because if Sam knew anything, it was when someone had more to say.

“He seemed brave,” he continue, “and I thought, you know, this guy has guts. But I already told him that. I didn’t even think he’d send a letter back.”

“You’re overthinking this. If he texted, it means he wants to talk. Give it a chance,” Sam replied, and clapped a hand on Steve’s shoulder. “And don’t worry about flirting right out the gate. Let it happen natural, man.”

“That’s not what this is _about_ ,” Steve said, but Sam was already walking out of the room, waving a hand dismissively.

“Sure it’s not, because you’d be struggling this hard if you thought the guy was ugly,” Sam said dryly, voice fading as he walked down the hallway, leaving Steve half-naked and frowning and no closer to being less confused.

He jumped out of planes on a monthly basis. He had fought aliens and robots and he could reply to a text, for _fuck’s s_ ake. Letting out a huff, his fingers tapped over the keyboard carefully to respond because he made typos if he typed too fast. Smartphones weren’t made for people with hands as big as his.

_S: you’ve got the right number_

He tried to think of something clever to say, but apparently his humor was strongest when he wasn’t actually trying to be funny. He let himself hover nervously for a moment before he settled.

_S: how are you? Used to people talking about you on the internet yet?_

Good, right, that sounded nonchalant. Steve flipped his phone over, screen down against the bed, and stood to yank off the rest of his clothes so he could go shower and pretend that he wasn’t jittery waiting for a response. He walked across the hall and closed the bathroom door quietly, could hear Sam clattering around in the kitchen.

He tried to shut his brain off while he was in the shower, but instead he ended up standing under the hot water and thinking over the past couple of weeks. Outside of his teammates, Steve didn’t just have…regular friends. No one to go to lunch with him or see a movie on a random Wednesday, because making friends had never been his first concern – or dating, for that matter.

It was easier than he’d have thought to get comfortably used to being lonely. Not that he’d ever had many friends _before_ he had been Captain America, but the world had seemed smaller then. Before the war, he knew his neighbors and the same kids that he went to school with for years. Knew everyone in the borough, practically. It wasn’t that way anymore.

But if some guy was batshit insane enough to throw a chair in the middle of a gunfight, then he had Steve’s interest. And yes, Steve had _eyes –_ he had been beautiful, but full of rage, and surprised with himself. Steve had a lot of questions, all from just a couple of minutes on the street.

When Steve meandered back into the bedroom, towel wrapped around his waist, the first thing he did was pick up his phone. His smile was automatic when he saw that he had texts waiting for him.

_Unknown: I’m doing ok. no one has really recognized me. I’ve been avoiding the internet tbh, I don’t wanna know what shit they’re saying_

_Unknown: thanks for getting me out a couple extra days of work though_

Before Steve replied, he made sure to save the contact, and simply re-named it ‘Bucky’ in his phone.

 

 

* * *

 

 

“Okay, brown or blue?” Sam asked, holding up the two leather jackets. “Brown…or, bam, blue?”

Steve raised an eyebrow from where he was tucked into the corner of the couch, because he’d been sitting here for far too long helping Sam make a decision on each article of his clothing.

“You’re sure asking me for a lot considering I was colorblind with no fashion sense for most of my life.”

“Nat’s busy right now, I can’t Facetime her and ask. So I’m stuck with you.”

“That makes more sense.”

“So pick, Rogers.”

“Blue,” he said, glancing down at his phone and back up at Sam.

“Blue it is. And I’m gonna pretend you didn’t look at your phone for the twentieth time in the last five minutes,” Sam said with a squint, and Steve rolled his eyes. And maybe the universe was listening because Steve’s phone chimed in his hand, and he pointedly didn’t look at Sam’s face.

_Bucky: can you give fashion advice from this century??_

_S: I’m what we call a last resort_

“Okay, not trying to get up in your business, but what the hell have ya’ll been talking about all day?” Sam asked, sitting down on the couch to pull on his socks. His ‘lucky date socks’ _,_ specifically, the black ones with silver thread.

“Nothing serious. I haven’t learned any dark secrets. I told him about the old lady hitting me with her grocery cart in the store today. He told me about his weird neighbor. Right now it’s about me picking your outfit.”

“Told you it wouldn’t be hard,” Sam said, and Steve made a noncommittal hum. Making conversation with Bucky had, in fact, been freakishly easy. There were pauses between texts sometimes, because life couldn’t be put on hold, but Bucky always replied. And he didn’t immediately want Steve’s life story of heroism – he had just let Steve tell him about what was happening in his day.

And he was funny, surprisingly, even over text. Steve had laughed aloud at plenty of Bucky’s messages, prompting Sam to ask from other rooms what was happening.

“Well, have fun watching your old man documentaries and talking with your new boo,” Sam continued, glancing at his watch. “Shit, it’s almost 8:30. I gotta go.”

“Call me if you need a ride,” Steve said, purposefully ignoring Sam’s comment, something Steve had gotten very good at since they had become friends.

“It’s a first date, c’mon. Keepin’ it classy.”

“Because you didn’t get so drunk on the last date that you rode around on the subway for two hours since you couldn’t remember which one to take.”

“You really didn’t have to take it there.”

“Point is, save yourself two hours and just call me,” he replied, and Sam grumbled, standing to grab his boots and shove them on.

_Bucky: as long as you’re not letting him leave the house looking more single than he left it_

Steve snorted, and Sam glanced over, pocketing his house keys.

“Hold down the fort,” Sam said, and Steve gave him a good-natured salute.

“Good luck out there,” he said, and Sam laughed himself into the hallway, shutting the door loudly behind him. The resounding silence was tangible, and Steve let himself soak it in for a few moments. He was used to Sam being in the apartment, playing his music or leaving the TV on, and Steve didn’t mind. It was comforting to know there was someone else around, company if he needed it. But for all that, he appreciated the quiet, too.

_S: There’s no going back now._

_Bucky: the guy could probably get a date wearing a garbage bag_

_Bucky: everyone at the VA group loves him_

It was the first that Bucky had mentioned how he knew Sam, and Steve considered asking more before deciding against it. He stood, staring at the phone while he walked over to the nook by the living room window. Steve unlatched the big glass pane and swung it open, hardly fitting on the window seat. Sam’s mother had gifted them a cushion for the nook, with tiny blue flowers on the cotton sleeve that neither Steve nor Sam had the heart to not use.

The avenue was busy with people walking their way into downtown Manhattan, and he watched them from his window perch. Sam was probably almost to the subway now, going to meet his date and walk around in the cool night. Steve had the itch to be out there with the rest of everyone, to have somewhere to go.

Instead, he texted Bucky back.

_S: He’s a good guy. But he leaves dirty socks laying around_

_Bucky: wow a tragedy. what a horrible roommate_

_S: I’ve considered evicting him_

_Bucky: lol being evicted by capt america would be rock bottom_

_S: I think I’d at least be fair about it_

_S: So what does a Saturday night look like for you?_

When Bucky didn’t immediately reply, Steve sat his phone on his thigh, listening to the conversations and occasional yelling down below. Two men were chattering loudly, holding hands, and Steve could hear bits and pieces of their conversation (there were pros and cons of having good ears, now, when one grew up hardly hearing a thing).

Sometimes, he’d be in Central Park and see two girls kiss, or watch groups of boys in tight outfits stumble down the streets of East Village laughing and grabbing each other. Having fun, momentarily unworried, and it still gave him a jolt of shock, that openness. The first time he’d seen Pride march through the city, he’d nearly keeled over.

Some changes, as unused to them as he was, were beautiful.

_Bucky: do you want the real answer or the fake answer?_

Steve smiled down at his phone, thinking, before replying.

_S: Both_

_Bucky: fake answer is that I’m being a 26 yr old man with a social life out at a bar with people_

_Bucky: real answer is that i’m watching old horror movies in sweatpants that i’ve had since high school_

_S: we probably have a different opinion on what’s old_

_Bucky: 60s to 90s were the golden era to me_

_Bucky: so either way you need to catch up_

_S: I’ll be a hundred years old again for the SECOND time before I catch up with everything_

_Bucky: plenty of time left._

 

 

* * *

 

 

At 1 in the morning, Sam came stumbling through the door, smelling like overpriced IPA and clove smoke. The TV was on, casting a bright glow on the otherwise dark living room, and Steve hardly spared a glance when the door opened.

“Guess you figured out the subway,” Steve said as Sam kicked off his shoes and locked up the several bolts on the door.

“Sure did,” Sam replied, shrugging off his jacket and throwing it over one of the bar chairs. “You do anything wild?”

“Oh yeah, it was crazy,” Steve replied, “How’d it go?”

“She was cool, but a little…” Sam trailed off, obviously struggling to find a polite way to say whatever he needed to, “uh, focused on the future. I’m not ready to have kids, man. Or put a ring on anybody.”

“Don’t think a ring is the biggest worry right now,” Steve said dryly, and Sam nodded, plopping down on the couch. He leaned his head back and sighed loudly.

“What did you do tonight?” Sam asked, “Have a secret rager?”

Before Steve could reply, his phone chimed, and Sam lolled his head to the side, raising his brows. Steve promptly looked away.

“Nevermind. I don’t have to ask.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

The next morning, the man on the kayak was back with his net, and Steve ran past him with a hand up. He and Sam had sat up until three, talking and watching mystery shows, and Sam had pretended to ignore the fact that Steve was texting right up until the moment he went to bed.

Still, when his phone went off in his pocket before the sun was even up, Steve actually bothered to check it. He felt very modern and a little silly, running with his phone in one hand. He could track Central Park with his eyes closed, so he tried not to let himself feel too bad. If anyone needed to worry about tripping or accidentally running into something, that wasn’t him.

_Bucky: someone is outside of the bakery taking pics of the chairs. i shouldn’t have picked up an extra shift_

_Bucky: is this my legacy_

_S: You’ll be in the history books_

_Bucky: why in hell are you awake_

_S: Running_

_S: And years of waking up early is a hard habit to break_

_Bucky: how are you texting and running_

_Bucky: nevermind that was a dumb question_

_S: :)_

_Bucky: that felt sarcastic_

Steve snorted to himself and shoved his phone back into his pocket, determined to focus on running and disconnect his brain for a while. Even now, it still sometimes surprised him how much he could do without worrying about an asthma attack or heart palpitations. He had spent longer as Steve Rogers, local idiot who didn’t know how to pick his fights, than he had Captain America.

And he was still Steve Rogers. The world just forgot that sometimes, was all. He couldn’t afford to forget along with it.

When he passed the Bethesda fountain for the second time, he let him slow to a stop, sitting heavily on the stone lip by the water pool. Pigeons cooed from where they flocked over the wings of the stone angel, up high in the middle of the fountain. The terrace was normally swarming with people, but there were only some joggers and a woman swaddled in an old coat, pushing a cart.

And coming from the hill path, amazingly, a man walking exactly six golden retrievers, all of them in tandem except one dog on the outside that chewed at its own leash and tried to veer off sideways. Normally he would have stayed secretly thrilled with the scene, but he couldn’t help taking a quick picture as they struggled by, the owner pleading quietly, “ _No,_ Kira, don’t chew, _don’t chew.”_

He sent it to Bucky, hoping the other man would be entertained with it, wondering if it was odd to send him pictures yet.

An hour later, when Bucky replied with, ‘ _holy shit, that made my day’,_ well – none of the strangers that walked around him had to know why he smiled at his phone, pleased with himself as he could be.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Over the next week, the first real cold snap of the season fell over New York. Halloween hadn’t even happened yet, but store fronts were already replacing pumpkins with turkey cut-outs or rotating Christmas trees. Steve was set to drive Upstate the first week of November, but until then, he was doing about the same thing.

The only change in his routine, really, was the texting. He and Bucky were talking consistently through the day, about odd people Steve had seen on the subway or whatever Bucky was making at work, places Steve still hadn’t been in New York and places Bucky hadn’t been in the whole world.

They didn’t talk about war. Steve didn’t ask about Bucky’s service (or the arm) while Bucky pointedly didn’t ask him about being Captain America. When Thursday passed, Sam didn’t even have anything to report from group, just that Bucky hadn’t shown up.

It felt, hesitantly, normal. Like they could keep on like this, and in a way, Bucky remained a mystery. Steve could remember the shape of his face and the breadth of his body, but he had no idea what his voice sounded like or even what color his eyes were. It was safe, but dully frustrating.

And then, on Sunday, Steve noticed a flyer on the kitchen counter, printed on fake parchment; in big, looping letters, it boasted a Halloween showing of The Exorcist at the old Village East Cinema, the coming up Tuesday at 8. Just a couple days away.  

Steve put it back, assuming Sam had dragged it in (which didn’t make sense, considering that Sam left the room whenever anything scary came on the TV). But when Steve went to his bedroom, there was another flyer laying on his bed. There were also copies, as he found out, on top of the toilet seat, stuffed between the couch cushions, and taped to the living room window.

“Sam?” he yelled, ripping the flyer off the window, brows raised.

“What?” Sam hollered back from his bedroom.

“Are you trying to tell me something?”

Steve heard the bedroom door crack open, and he backed up to the hallway; Sam poked his head out and said, “Man, nothing gets past you, huh.”

“Care to explain _what_ you’re trying to tell me?” he asked.

“Thought you’d wanna see the movie.”

“You hate scary movies.”

“Damn right, I hate them,” Sam affirmed, and there was a long pause between them. Steve stared dumbly until Sam finally rolled his eyes. “But not everyone hates them.”

“I – okay?”

“Jesus Christ, Rogers, how are you protecting the free world? I figured you could ask _someone_ to see it with you.”

Steve looked down at the flyer in his hand, and then back at Sam, mouth pursed before it clicked and he blurted, “I’m not sure about that.”

“Why not?” Sam asked, coming out of his room and walking up to Steve. He took the flyer from his hand and flapped it harshly. “You always say you’re waitin’ too long to do things. Don’t wait on this.”

“We’ve only been talking for a week.”

“Yeah, day and night, you’ve been talking. Why wouldn’t you want to actually talk to him in person?” he said, and gave Steve’s broad shoulder a punch. “C’mon, Cap. At least think about it. Goin’ to see a movie is easy. You’ll regret it the longer you put it off.”

At that, Steve didn’t respond, but he took the flyer back when Sam handed it to him and walked past to go make dinner. They didn’t talk about it the rest of the evening, but Sam had done his job – now that the idea was in Steve’s brain, it was annoying the hell out of him.

 _What would it hurt to ask,_ he wondered, while something doubtful told him that it was too soon, that they didn’t even really know each other.

He kept talking to Bucky as he had been, late into the night, until Bucky finally didn’t return the last text and Steve assumed he had fallen asleep. Sam had gone to bed earlier, so Steve was alone to push the decision around in his mind.

He opened up his bedroom window to let in the cold breeze, running hot even sitting in a tank top. Cars honked in near Manhattan, occasional laughter floating up from groups of people that wandered past the apartment down below.

He felt restless in his own skin, so he cracked open a sketchbook he had bought himself a couple months ago and hardly touched. It was getting more routine to return to drawing with his free time, and putting pencil to paper stilled something in him.

Steve pulled the thin cotton top sheet over his legs and leaned against the headboard of his bed, sketching from memory bits and pieces of what he had seen recently. The angel with her wings open in the Bethesda fountain, a smiling teenager with face piercings who had stopped him for a selfie in the subway, the pitbull that slept by the door of the market a few blocks over.

Time slipped around him without notice. Steve was detailing the drooping wrinkles of the pitbull’s muzzle when his phone buzzed on his bedside table. He grabbed it, saw at once that it was nearly 3 in the morning and that Bucky had texted, replying to something Steve had said hours ago.

_Bucky: tell sam tomorrow that i wanted to go to group but my sister was visiting_

_S: Still awake or just waking up?_

_S: And yeah, I’ll tell him. He wondered where you were.  I didn’t know you had a sister_

_Bucky: waking up. i don’t sleep so good thru the night_

_S: Nightmares?_

There was a pause in which Bucky didn’t respond, and Steve thought that he might have overstepped some boundary. Sam had warily mentioned that Bucky seemed like he might have been through a lot, between the arm and unwillingness to talk in group.

But if anyone could understand bringing the war home, it was Steve, and perhaps Bucky guessed that, because he replied.

_Bucky: yeah, nightmares. i never get back to sleep after them._

_S: if I get a bad one I can’t stay in the room. Have to walk it off_

_Bucky: I don’t work today so its not like i need to stay up but idk_

_Bucky: i’ll try sleeping again once i don’t feel half out of my mind_

_S: Well, you can talk to me. I’ve just been up drawing._

_Bucky: I didn’t know you could draw_

_S: picked it up when I was a kid, always stuck sick in bed so there wasn’t much else. I got around to loving it._

_Bucky: what do you draw?_

_S: I really like scenery, things that stick out to me when I’m just walking around. Portraits are fun too, depending on the model._

He paused, chewing on his chapped bottom lip as he regarded the open sketchbook on his lap.

_S: Do you want to see?_

_Bucky: see what? your art? yeah lemme see it_

Steve brightened his bedside lamp so the camera wouldn’t grain or shadow, and he took a steady picture of the two pages he’d filled with his sketches. He admittedly felt a tinge of strangeness when he sent the picture to Bucky.

Steve’s art had always been just for himself, more of an outlet or _need_ than a hobby. It never occurred to him that he might share his art with others. He let Sam or Nat look at his sketches, if they happened by when he was drawing, which was rare.

_Bucky: jesus, steve_

_Bucky: those are great_

_Bucky: shoulda gone into art if the whole soldier thing hadn’t been for you_

_S: Thank you :) I went to a semester of art school, but I couldn’t afford it after that. Then you know. Duty called._

_Bucky: maybe in another life your a famous artist_

_S: Do you believe in that stuff?_

_Bucky: other versions of us? Yeah. Think that whole science business is onto something_

_Bucky: makes me feel better knowing there are versions of me that get a whole different life_

_S: think there’s a world where we grew up in brooklyn together?_

_Bucky: gotta be. Growing up with you might be exhausting tho. you seem like a lot of trouble_

Steve laughed quietly – trouble was right. He’d settled with constantly getting beaten to a pulp once he realized he didn’t have anyone willing to watch his back. A pang of old anger simmered through him, or maybe it was loneliness, or both.

He took a deep breath, and typed slowly.

_S: Wherever our ‘30s selves are, I’m sure they’re making it just fine_

_S: But in this world, do you think we could go see a movie together this Tuesday?_

Steve hesitated, staring at the sentence before he braced and sent it off with a little woosh. He stared at the screen, anxious for Bucky’s reply. A minute went by, then two. Then five, and Steve typed again.

_S: They’re screening the Exorcist at VE cinema. I went there once, in the 30s. I remember you said you like older scary movies so I thought I’d ask_

He let out a sigh, but Bucky still didn’t reply. When five minutes had passed again, Steve locked his phone and placed it screen-down on the table. He sat there, hands resting over his sketchbook, feeling foolish and unfortunately disappointed.  

It was fine. Nothing would change, and maybe that was for the better. He let it sting a little, still, had trouble admitting that it even stung in the first place.

But at least he had tried. Sam would like that, that he had asked. Steve snapped his sketchbook shut and turned off his lamp, casting the room into shadows. He rolled over on his side and stared past the open window, the far off orange and white twinkling of the city something to occupy his eyes before they finally slipped closed.

 

 

* * *

 

 

For once, Steve didn’t wake up to an alarm, having forgotten to set it. He came around slowly, stretching his long limbs with a groan. The room was cold, all the air from the night before having drifted in, but the sun was up. Around 8, maybe?

He lay there for a while, enjoying the soft blue-tinged glow of morning and the fact that he actually had goosebumps on his arms. Morning time was when his mind was blessedly the most at ease, even if it never lasted long. Sighing, he sat up, cracked his back and neck before reaching for his phone.

The thought of last night made him unwilling to turn it over – he had gotten used to seeing a text from Bucky on his screen more often than not in the past week, and it unnerved him how quickly he acclimated to that. So he braced for a blank screen, but blinked in surprise to see that he had a text alert.

He opened his text threads and clicked on the new messages from Bucky. They were time-stamped at 6:12 a.m.

_Bucky: yeah, i’d really like to go._

_Bucky: just let me know what the plan is_

Steve stared at the texts, reading them once, then four times, and then – then he let himself smile, wide and open, one that was all Rogers.  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> An actual weekly update??? Holy shit? I had a lot of fun writing this chapter and am so EXCITED for the next one. I have it planned, but I'm still deciding if I want it to be Steve or Bucky POV, so if ya'll have any opinions on that let me know! Which reminds me, thank ya'll so, so much for the feedback you've given so far, whether it's a comment or a kudo. It seriously makes me feel encouraged. :')
> 
> As always, here's my [twitter](https://twitter.com/seafoam_sighs) and here's my [tumblr](http://laceandcaramel.tumblr.com/)!
> 
> Until next time!
> 
> *For reference, the man mentioned in this chapter with his six dogs was something I saw in Queens a couple weeks ago and I haven’t stopped thinking about it since then tbh


	4. Bucky

When he was fourteen, he had gone on his first date – Alexandra Newbert, had hair shiny as a new penny and laughed more than she frowned. They had walked themselves to the arcade and then the movies while Bucky tried not to stare too hard at the way her tiny cotton shorts clung to her backside in the hot summer day.

He hadn’t known shit about girls, but they still held hands despite the heat and she had let him kiss her cheek that night when he walked her back to her house.

 _Never gonna feel like that again,_ his father had said the next morning at the breakfast table, flipping the newspaper and in a rare good mood. _Firsts are always somethin’ special._

It wasn’t that his father had always been wrong, but that was one thing he had missed by a long shot. Bucky had been on dozens of dates and non-dates and _‘is this a date’_ outings in his life, but he hadn’t been this nervous since Alexandra.

And for gods’ sake, it wasn’t even a date (no, not a date, don’t even think like that), but he still found himself shaving his face down to a fine stubble and pacing in front of his closet.

Because what in the _fuck_ was he supposed to wear for a movie hang out with Steve Rogers? The past week of texting him almost constantly had been surreal. Each text that Bucky received gave him pause, like he was expecting for the punchline to land, all a big joke, _ha ha._

It had helped take away some of the mystery surrounding the man, made him a little more tangible, but Bucky was really left with more questions than answers.

Steve was actually nice, and not in the way _aw shucks_ kind of way, not like the plastered smiles and American shtick for conferences and rare interviews. Admittedly, that’s what Bucky had almost been expecting.

But no, it seemed that Steve was – not nice. Maybe nice wasn’t the right word; rather, he was kind. Like, actually decent. It’s what kept Bucky texting him back, it’s what had made him reply to the letter in the first place. His kindness, and the surprising sense of humor. The media painted him so seriously, but the guy was always prying sarcasm or making a dry joke that had Bucky laughing at his phone.

Part of him harbored a deep fear that Steve wouldn’t be the same in person, or he’d think Bucky wasn’t the same, and the whole thing would go down the drain. What if their conversations stalled? What if, god forbid, they were awkward?

Texting was one thing – and even that was weird as hell, all things considered – but being face-to-face was another.

And Steve sure had a nice face. He had…a nice everything. Bucky was doomed. Hypothetically, this process could have been easier if he had told anyone it was happening, but Bucky thought that the reactions would stress him more than just handling it alone.

This was just for him. If it flopped, no one had to know his shame.

 _And if it goes well?_ his mind wheedled, that small part of him that could never help but be hopeful, and yeah, of course he wanted it to go well. It’d be great to have a friend that wasn’t his sister or his freaky neighbor. Calling Wade a friend in the first place was stretching his graciousness thin.

So he just had to remember deodorant, wear his favorite leather jacket and big Docs, and pull his hair up into a sloppy bun. Boom, he was present for the public, at least on the outside. And if he stuffed some Xanax tablets into his pockets and sat on his couch for a full hour overthinking exactly what his first words were going to be to Steve, that was just a part of his reality.

He hadn’t gone out for fun in a long time, much less with someone he hardly knew. But buried under all the anxiety was a spark of excitement, kept stoked by the Bucky that loved being out, meeting new people, seeing new places.

Old and new. The same and not. He got it all mixed up, sometimes.

When his phone chimed from its place on the coffee table, Bucky forced himself not to rush as he grabbed it to look.

_Steve: Hey! I’m outside, couldn’t find a buzzer. No rush_

When Steve had offered to pick him up, his desire to avoid the subway and Uber cost had made him give a quick yes. He had to wonder if Sam had mentioned that Bucky called a car for the meetings.

Somehow, it hadn’t seemed completely real until now, and he thought of Steve standing outside in front of his shitty building, waiting for him. Waiting by the cracked sidewalk and the withering rose bushes that someone had planted a long time ago, waiting with a warm car and maybe, just maybe, waiting nervously.

He stared at his phone for a moment, then jiggled his hand with a decisive huff before standing and heading for the door. Bucky locked up behind himself and went down their dim hallway, made darker by the twilight that was already falling outside. As he opened the sliding glass door that led to the patio, he heard the click of a latch behind him.

And then - an ominous, familiar squeak that could only come from a pair of Crocs.

 _Please god, no,_ was all he had time to desperately think before Wade said, loudly, “What the fuck is happening here? What are you wearing?”

Bucky looked over his shoulder, and yes, Wade was walking towards him, a beer in one hand and sporting only gym shorts.

“The guy who doesn’t have on clothes shouldn’t ask me what I’m wearing,” he replied, hustling out of the door and hoping upon God and the holy spirit that Wade was just coming to hang out on the patio.

“My dick is covered. Answer my question.”

“I’m just going out,” he said. “Shouldn’t you be at work? Wherever that is?”

“Day off. Christ, the time is finally here. You’re dressed and going out and my sad ass is staying in. They grow up so fast, get into debt, come back home…”

“As much as I love these talks, I got somewhere to be,” he said dryly, nearly tripped over all the empty beer bottles Wade had left out by the lawn chairs.

“Well, since you love them so much, you can walk me to the mailbox like a real gentleman and then leave me there,” Wade said, quickly pacing Bucky, Crocs squeaking furiously.

“No, that’s – why do you need the mail now?”

“Normal people check their mail, Barnes. And I need doses of normal. You’re super twitchy, man, who are you meeting?” Wade asked, then slapped his shoulder. “You need me to take prom pictures? Need me to give the shotgun-and-curfew talk?”

“What I need is for you to not say anything,” Bucky stressed, brain rifling through any number of last ditch attempts that could save the situation. When he came up with none, he admitted a sad defeat with, “Just don’t make it weird.”

“This person better be good, Barnes. I better shit my pants from the shock.”

“If you shit your pants, I’m making you stay outside tonight.”

They came around the front, Wade babbling and Bucky wishing for a swifter, kinder death. He wondered, briefly and a bit frantically, how it had all led up to here. He had been halfway towards a normal life, for god’s sake.

 _This is a mistake,_ the traitorous part of his brain seethed, and Bucky felt sweat at the back of his neck, the temptation to run back into his house overwhelming and present.

And then – there was Steve Rogers, standing on the sidewalk and waving hesitantly, dressed in dark jeans and a caramel-colored leather jacket. He was smiling, though, like he was expectant, like he had actually been excited to see Bucky walk out. Bucky stopped for a second, boots sinking into the soft ground of their meager front lawn, and then he waved back.

“I’m shitting my pants,” Wade whispered next to him, and Bucky shoved him towards the mailbox, hissing, _“Wade!”_

“We’re gonna talk about this later. Oh, we’re gonna talk,” Wade replied, and Bucky rolled his eyes, walking towards Steve and waving Wade off as if he could shoo him away. Steve was watching him closely, and Bucky tried not to feel self-conscious when he knew that this was the most cleaned up he had been in months.

“Hey there,” Steve said, and his voice was softer than Bucky had expected, no orders to give or authority to belay. Bucky’s mouth twitched up into a smile automatically, and Steve continued, “Stole Sam’s car to come get you. He said that if we messed it up, he’ll hold a grudge until he dies.”

“If all my 18 year old Uber drivers can get through the city, I’m sure _you_ can manage it. Won’t even put my boots on the dash,” Bucky replied, sounding shy even to himself, sliding his hands into his pockets for lack of anything else to do. He had put on gloves to hide his prosthetic, and it felt stiff and abnormal against his thigh.

“Yeah? Scout’s honor?” Steve asked, raising a thick brow, and Bucky snorted. His heart felt like it was going to punch out of his chest, but the humor helped cover up the vague nausea of nerves.

“Was never a scout.”

Steve smiled, and nodded his head at the silver car, a wordless invitation to get in. He flipped the keys in his hand, and Bucky thought, okay, this was happening. It was happening, and he could do this, and good god the man was even more beautiful up close. That shoulder-to-waist ratio wasn’t even possible on Ken dolls, so what did an actual living person do to deserve it? Be Captain Fuckin’ America, apparently.

Bucky popped the passenger door just as Steve opened his from the other side, but before either of them could get in, Wade called from the yard, “Mr. Captain!”

“Oh my god,” Bucky muttered, closing his eyes while Steve yelled back, “Yes?”

Wade was waving wildly from beside the dilapidated mailbox, all the mail in his hand flapping around, and hollered, “Hey, Wade Wilson, big fan! Bring him home by midnight! Or just keep him forever!”

“Good _night,_ Wade,” Bucky said, looking over his shoulder and giving Wade a glare that promised that he wouldn’t forgive this as long as he lived.

“I’ll do what I can,” Steve replied good-naturedly, and then ducked to get into the car. As soon as their doors were closed, Bucky was rubbing a hand over his face and sighing.

“So. _That’s_ the neighbor I’ve heard about,” he commented, starting up the engine. When Bucky glanced at him, it looked like he was struggling not to laugh.

“I’ve lived there for almost two years and not a day goes by where I don’t think about changing my name and moving,” Bucky grumbled, keeping his boots solidly on the clean floorboard as promised.

The interior of Sam’s car was pristine, and had one of those vent air fresheners (fresh pine, to be exact). Steve peeled away from the curb, and Bucky watched as his brownstone faded down the street. He jiggled his leg, and when he glanced back at Steve, it was to see that Steve was looking at him, too.

The silence wasn’t uncomfortable; it felt more like they were both just soaking in the fact that they were here, actual and real and sitting in the same car. Bucky could deal with that.

“Eyes on the road, Captain,” Bucky said, relieved when his voice didn’t betray his nerves, and Steve let out a humorous huff. Maybe Bucky was finally good and well going crazy, but he thought he saw the tips of Steve’s ears go red like he was embarrassed to have been caught staring.

“I’m a multi-tasker, remember?”

“Didn’t you do a PSA on safe driving?”

“I try to forget that I did those PSAs at all,” he said, sounding so _weary_ that it startled a laugh from Bucky. Steve grinned at the noise, and his teeth looked so white against the pink of his lips that it sobered Bucky into the moment.

“I kind of can’t believe this,” he said before his brain could catch up with his mouth, but it was the truth, and he was nearly certain that they were both thinking it. “Didn’t really know that hitting people with chairs was a great conversation starter.”

“If I’ve learned anything in this century, it’s to stop being surprised by much,” Steve said, flipping on the turn signal and merging into the lane that headed to the Manhattan Bridge. Dark was falling fast, but the car was illuminated by the street lights and buildings that flew past. New York had no time to dim, and houses were strung up in orange LEDs and decoration for Halloween. He could only imagine what the Village looked like.

“What? The last century didn’t teach you that?” Bucky asked, and Steve raised his brows, shrugging.

“I think aliens were kind of my limit for being shocked.”

“If I were you, I’d be more shocked by the shit you can find on the Internet than by aliens. I mean, I grew up when the Internet really took off, and I got to watch that go downhill.”

“The Internet is a close second to the aliens.”

“Yeah? What’s the weirdest thing you’ve seen online?” Bucky asked, propping his ankle up onto his knee and watching the profile of Steve’s face closely. The honorable bastard hadn’t moved his gaze from the road ahead of them once since Bucky had said something.

“Some things need to be forgotten, Bucky,” Steve replied, sounding grave, and Bucky couldn’t ignore the flutter of emotion that he felt at the back of his throat when Steve said his name.

“Tell me. Trust me, I won’t be surprised.”

“You really wanna ruin what could be a perfectly fine evening?”

“It won’t ruin nothing. So c’mon, let’s hear it.”

“People…sure are _inventive_ with porn,” Steve said, gritting the words out like they pained him, and Bucky had to press his lips together hard to keep himself from laughing. Of course. Of course it was porn.

“Uh-huh.”

“And I’ve seen people draw and even, uh, _act_ out porn of – of me.”

“…uh-huh.”

“Me and my _coworkers,_ ” he blurted, and Bucky finally let loose an unattractive snort followed by a laugh, half because Steve was so dramatic and half because he remembered when the Captain America porno had come out and social media had lost its collective shit.

“People make porn out of everything, man,” he managed, “That’s one of the least weird things for you to see on the Internet.”

“Listen. You try being out of commission for seventy years and coming back to blue movies of yourself, then we’ll talk.”

“I’m more disturbed by the fact that you just called them blue movies,” Bucky said, and Steve shook his head, but he was smiling. They had hit the perpetual traffic of the Manhattan Bridge, and Bucky rolled down his window, the autumn chill striking him hard against the warmth inside the car.

Somewhere along the course of the conversation, his heart beat had slowed. He was beginning to feel dumb for fearing that Steve would be harder to talk to in person – now he just couldn’t fuck it up, and they’d be golden.

Steve fiddled with the radio while Bucky snooped through the glove box, something to do with himself, and there was a bunch of stuff shoved inside the compartment. Papers and owner’s manual, takeout napkins, a beat-up old flashlight, wayward sticks of gum, and one singular CD. Bucky took out the CD and flipped it over – burn CD, and nothing written on it.

“Sam got a working CD player in this thing?” Bucky asked.

“Hm? Oh, yeah,” Steve replied, and Bucky showed Steve the CD. “I’m almost scared to know what’s on there.”

“We’re gonna find out,” he said, and pushed the CD into the slot. They sat in silence while the CD shuffled, and then a soothing female speaker said, _‘Welcome to the first volume of Ultimate Relaxation, a time to put your worries away and just listen. Sit back, take a deep breath, and be soothed.’_

Then, the pattering of raindrops and sounds of chirping in a forest, and Bucky looked slowly at Steve, who was staring straight ahead with his eyebrows up so high that they practically hit his hairline.

“I think…” Bucky started, and then paused. “I think Sam might be a little _lame._ This is the shit they play in therapist waiting rooms.”

“And he makes fun of me for being an old man.”

“Well, you are.”

“Did you wanna walk the rest of the way to the theater?” Steve asked, and Bucky tipped his face towards the skyline to hide the smile that grew on his face.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Even on a weekday, East Village was busy as hell – and it was Halloween to boot, which meant people were out in droves for movies and parties, dressed up and drunk and ready for trouble. Steve hadn’t even attempted to find parallel parking, so they ended up in a dirty parking garage a few blocks away from the cinema.

Few blocks, no big deal, but crowds made Bucky nervous nowadays and the thought of busy streets full of yelling strangers made him go a little green around the face. If Steve noticed that he seemed jittery, he didn’t comment, only locked the car up and led them down the clanging metal staircase to the ground floor.

“Just so you know,” Steve said as they emerged on the street, “I have no idea what this movie’s about.”

They had to make their way over to 2nd street, and Bucky let himself be momentarily distracted by all of the people that filtered down the sidewalks, covered in fake blood and costumes that left little to the imagination. The booze was practically hanging down the air. He blinked hard, shoved his hands into the pockets of his jacket, and took a deep breath through his nose.

“You’re in for a time, then,” he answered, and found that when they were this close, Steve was a little taller than him. All of the lights from the buildings cast the angles of his face in perfect scatters of shadow but illuminated his hair, the dark gold of a true blonde. Their eyes met, and Steve’s mouth lifted into the same tiny smile that he had given Bucky when he first looked at him outside of the bakery.

“Should I bother to ask, or are you letting me go into this thing blind?” he asked, and they got moving, automatically walking fast to blend into the stream of people; New Yorkers always walked like they had a personal shield around themselves, deftly avoiding one another but unblinking if someone brushed or bumped them.

“So there’s a little girl, and a demon, and a priest,” Bucky replied, matching his stride to Steve’s without much of a second thought. Moving made the people a little easier to deal with. They edged their way onto the crosswalk before the light had quite turned red, and then sped over to the other street.

“This sounds like a bad joke set-up,” Steve mused, “A little girl, a demon, and a priest walk into a bar…”

“Chaos ensues. Oh, there’s a mom, too. That’s the whole joke.”

“Bad joke.”

“I didn’t know it was a comedy,” Bucky responded dryly, and Steve shot back, just as dry, “I thought it was a musical.”

“They didn’t put your sarcasm in any history books I ever read.”

“There’s a lot they didn’t put into history books. About before, that is,” Steve said, and anyone who wasn’t really listening would have missed the slight bitter tang in his words.

“Like what?” Bucky asked, moving closer to Steve to avoid a large group of chattering girls in Disney outfits; when they saw Steve, they all giggled, and Steve generously gave them a nod. That elicited a large round of gasps, and when they were a few feet away, Bucky continued, “Careful, Rogers, you might give someone a heart attack.”

“Nah,” he said humbly, rubbing his nose and glancing at Bucky.

“Didn’t answer my question.”

“I’m still the same person I was before the serum. I mean, older. A little more mature, I hope. Before I enlisted, I got my ass handed to me about every week. Always fightin’ somebody, always getting in arguments.”

“Never were one for backing down, huh? I can see that,” Bucky said, kicking an empty beer bottle to the side. It clattered over the lip of the sidewalk and rolled into the gutter.

“Says you,” Steve said, and Bucky glanced at him, reaching up to push back a lock of hair that had escaped his bun.

“What’s that s’posed to mean?”

“Never been in a fight and had a stranger jump in on it like they’d started it. You were still wearing an apron.”

“Yeah, well,” Bucky shrugged, a little embarrassed that Steve brought it up so casually, “Standing around and waiting for something to pass by ain’t my strong suit.”

“Mine either.”

“Guess we’re justa pair of idiots, then,” Bucky said, not unkindly, and Steve bumped their shoulders together.

“Guess so,” Steve murmured, and god - how long had it been since he had been with someone new? Since he had been out in this world, the nighttime New York he had grown into and loved?

Bucky felt suddenly warm, strangely buoyant, and he thought that maybe this was what it meant to be better. That this was what he had worked for and sweated over, to be a man again, just a man strolling along the street with plans and a fluttering chest.

“Wow,” Steve said, stopping them at the corner. The theater was just across the street, lit up to high heavens with its movie board and the warm glow inside. It sported high arches all along the side and ate up the entire corner of the block with its size.

“Never been here before,” Bucky commented.

“It’s mostly like I remember. They probably changed the inside.”

“So cross the street and see,” Bucky urged, and they did. There was an odd boyish giddiness that bubbled up his chest as they pushed through the old subway turnstile that was just inside the door, and he felt strange - not bad. Just strange, like he had never expected to be out like this again, heady with good company and in a new place.

The interior was rich reds and golds, with a high domed ceiling and old-fashioned popcorn machines. He’d never been in a theater this fancy, had always gone to the same shitty 5-screen one in Brooklyn (which he loved, make no mistake).

He trailed a few paces after Steve as they meandered through the lobby, and eventually Bucky gave up on the scenery and settled for trying to discretely watch Steve instead. The man’s gaze was flickering everywhere, and Bucky waited for him to look over before he asked, “So, did they change the inside?”

“Not really,” he answered, voice gone all strange and kind of wistful, and it took Bucky a second to recognize that Steve was probably sorting through some memories.

“What’d you come here for?” Bucky asked, “I mean, the first time.”

“Wizard of Oz. People lost their heads when it came out.”

“Jesus,” Bucky replied, because whenever Steve mentioned the past like that, it occurred to Bucky that the 30s were only a few years over to him, not nearly a century. In a haste not to seem rude, he added, “Well, this is a hell of a jump away from Wizard of Oz.”

“Is it that bad? Sam said he saw it when he was a kid and he couldn’t sleep for a week,” Steve said, wordlessly moving towards the concession stand; he had bought the tickets as soon as Bucky had agreed to go and refused to take cash for them. Bucky trotted after him, admittedly drawn by the smell of fresh popcorn and butter.

“Great movie. Scary as hell,” he said, standing close to Steve in the line as a few people came up behind them. Steve bumped against Bucky’s left side, an accidental misstep, and Bucky hated that he stiffened.

The other man surely had to feel the unnatural rigidity of his left arm, knew that the space being filled in his jacket was a prosthetic. But Steve had the good grace to say nothing about it, just as he hadn’t since they had started talking.

“I remember watching it with my sister when she was finally old enough,” Bucky kept going, trying to rush over his own awkward reaction to the touch, “She was 15, had been begging me for a couple years to let her watch it. She hated that I got to do things that she couldn’t ‘cause I was older, you know? And when we finally did watch it, she never even finished it. Hell, she’s 23 now and I don’t think she’s ever seen the whole thing.”

“I guess now’s not the best time to tell you that horror isn’t really my go-to,” Steve said, mouth pursed, and Bucky raised a brow.

“If you can save the free world from time to time, I think you can sit through this movie,” he said, and Steve huffed out a breath.

“Just don’t make fun of me if I hold my hand over my face.”

“I will definitely make fun of you.”

“I had you pegged for a loyal guy, Barnes.”

“Loyal where it counts. Some opportunities can’t be passed up,” he said, and that earned him a laugh, and said laugh earned a wave of pleasure for Bucky.

Bucky didn’t really know a thing about Captain America, but he was getting to know Steve Rogers, and he liked what he was learning.

They bought buttered popcorn in the largest tub available, and Bucky had slammed his wallet onto the counter before Steve could even finish digging for his. He felt guilty for not buying his own ticket, he could at least do this.

Steve, apparently, didn’t agree, saying as they walked toward their theater, “You didn’t have to buy the food. I was gonna get it.”

“A bucket of popcorn ain’t gonna break my bank. You bought the tickets, anyways.”

Steve shot him an unreadable expression, but then just threw some popcorn into his mouth and shrugged.

“Fair enough. Hey, I’m glad we got here kinda early. I want good seats.”

 _Good seats_ translated to ‘seats in the very back, against the wall, dead in the middle’. They didn’t even have to discuss position, they both just tromped up the glowing steps and passed row after row of red leather chairs. When they sat, both of the exits were clearly visible, as were all the rows beneath them.

Vantage points. Bucky spared a glance at Steve and saw that he was scanning just the same. It relieved something in him, somehow, that they had this in common.

“Oh!” Steve suddenly exclaimed, not even a minute after they had sat down, “I forgot to get drinks.”

“It’s cool, man, I’m fine.”

“Bucky, you can’t watch a movie, have popcorn, and not have a drink. C’mon, what do you want?”

“Uh, God. Haven’t had a Coke in a second.”

“Coke it is. I’ll be right back,” Steve said, and clambered past Bucky, hard legs knocking Bucky’s knees to the side when he had to squeeze through the little space that the aisle allowed. It gave Bucky a very close and personal view of Steve’s ass, perfectly plastered into those jeans, and he suddenly thought that he needed that drink after all, he _absolutely_ needed a drink before he died of thirst.

Alone for the first time since the hang-out had started, Bucky was able to lean back and let out a long, slow breath. It was startling to him that he felt so at ease around Steve, even in person, didn’t much second guess his words before they came out of his mouth and didn’t worry about them once they had left, either.

Which begged the question: was Steve having as much fun as Bucky? Did he like Bucky as much as he had seemed to before they met? He could be regretting this entire thing, and Bucky wouldn’t even know because the guy was so goddamn decent.

Before his mind could really rattle off in a disastrous direction, he whipped out his phone, determined to find a distraction. He put the screen brightness all the way down and checked his texts, the first unsurprisingly being from Wade.

_weird neighbor: I REALLY DID SHIT MY PANTS_

_weird neighbor: U DIDN’T TELL ME UR DATING CAPTAIN EAGLE ASS?? IM BETRAYED_

_B: it’s not a date, i didn’t BETRAY YOU dramatic asshole_

With a shake of the head, he tabbed over to his other text, unsurprisingly from Becca.

_Little Sister: hey Buck can you help me move some furniture this weekend?_

_Little Sister: teagan is moving out :(_

_B: pretty sure my schedule will be free._

He waited to see if she’d start typing back, and after a minute, she did.

_Little Sister: thank you!!! I haven’t heard from you all day_

_Little Sister: is Wade hosting one of his terrifying apartment family meals again?_

_B: nah_

_B: I’m out with a friend_

The typing bubbles popped up, then disappeared, then popped up again. Bucky rolled his eyes, because he could literally feel Becca sweating over how to respond.

_Little Sister: you’re not shitting me right?_

_B: N o_

_Little Sister: WHAT_

_Little Sister: my brother, out in public? what are you doing_

_B: seeing the exorcist in east village_

_Little Sister: ew I hate that movie_

_Little Sister: what poor soul is suffering through that with you?_

Bucky hesitated, stuck between brushing her off (which would make her suspicious) or telling the truth (which would make her freak out). But Steve Rogers, saving grace that he was, came back with drinks while Bucky was fussing over how to respond, and it gave him an excuse to cut the conversation short.

_B: Movie’s about to start, talk later. Love you_

And then he shoved his phone back into his pocket as Steve sat down, on the right this time. That meant no accidental ass show again, but at least Steve was on his good side now.

“You don’t have to put your phone away right now if it’s important,” Steve said, settling a drink next to Bucky. “But here, Coke.”

“Thanks. And nah, it wasn’t important. Just my sister asking what I was up to.”

“What’s your sister’s name? I don’t think you’ve said.”

“Becca. She’s a little demon.”

“I think younger siblings are supposed to be demons. Not that I’d know much about that,” Steve said.

“Did you ever want a sibling?” Bucky asked, always curious about the alien world of only children, and Steve hummed in thought.

“Maybe, sometimes. I thought it’d be great to have a brother for a while, but then I figured it was better that I didn’t. My ma worried about me enough, didn’t need someone else fussing over me. And – well, you know. Less to leave behind,” Steve answered, and Bucky almost winced.

But Steve only sipped his drink, and they watched the advertisement previews just to exchange scathing comments about how dumb the ads were. If there was anything Bucky could do without much second thought, it was drag something through the dirt.

The theater started to get pretty full, and Bucky was grateful that the people on either side of them had chosen to keep a few seats between. One of the girls on Steve’s right kept glancing over, though, obviously trying to figure out if she was actually staring at Captain America. Steve was oblivious, leaning towards Bucky and trying to keep his voice low when he poked fun at whichever ad was playing.

“You know, they used to play war previews before movies? Asking you to enlist, help out, stuff like that. And I was at a movie once and this war preview is playing and a guy keeps yelling over them, telling them to get on with it and play the movie. I told him to shut his mouth,” Steve whispered his story, and Bucky took a sip of his soda, enrapt.

“And?”

“He kicked my ass in the alley behind the movie theater. Threw me into some trash.”

Bucky had to clap his hand over his face when he snorted, because Coke was threatening to burst from his nostrils and ruin what dignity he _did_ have. Steve leaned back and continued to eat his popcorn like Bucky hadn’t almost snotted soda all over the place.

“Don’t get us kicked out,” Bucky managed, pressing the back of his hand to his nose and having the good grace to not be too embarrassed.

“Think I could handle a fight in an alley now.”

When the lights finally dimmed, the theater was completely full, and all side conversations and chattering came to a slow halt. Bucky settled back into his seat, more comfortable in the dark of the room with something to focus on. He propped up on the arm rest and could feel Steve’s body heat, their arms just touching. They were both big guys, so what space they had would have to be shared – some tragedy.

Only a couple of previews played, just trailers for upcoming specials for the cinema, and then the movie reeled. The opening desolate theme and prayer chanting was nostalgic in the kind of eerie way that reminded him how much the movie had terrified him as a kid.

This wasn’t exactly how he figured he’d be revisiting it, but when Steve wordlessly handed him the popcorn, Bucky couldn’t feel any other way besides grateful.

 

 

* * *

 

 

When the movie rolled its credits, Bucky and Steve meandered their way out behind the flood of the crowd. Bucky’s ass was numb, and his stomach was immensely unsatisfied, and he knew one vital fact: watching the movie was entertaining, but watching _Steve_ watch it was even better.

The amount of disturbed, concerned, shocked, and downright _scandalized_ expressions that had crossed Steve’s face in the course of two hours was probably historical. Bucky had split his experience between enjoying the movie and trying not to outright laugh.

“So,” Bucky asked once they were back in the lobby, throwing their trash into one of the cans, “how’d you feel?”

Steve opened his mouth, then closed it again, and shook his head.

“That good, huh?”

“I should never have asked you out to do this, Barnes,” Steve said, and it might have stung if Steve hadn’t paired it with a smile.

“‘The power of Christ compels you,’” Bucky quoted dryly, and Steve gave a bodily tremor and lip curl. “We just watched a cultural phenomenon. I’ve _educated_ you tonight, you should be thanking me.”

“Is that what I should be doing? The old priest I grew up listening to is probably rolling in his grave,” Steve muttered, checking his phone for the first time that night as they made their way to the doors. Outside, the temperature had dropped drastically, and it had only gotten more crowded. Bucky sidled himself against the wall beneath one of the arches and pulled a pack of cigarettes from his back pocket.

“Do you mind…?” he asked, and when Steve looked up from his phone, Bucky waved the pack of cigarettes.

“Doesn’t bother me anymore. Go ahead. I gotta call Sam real quick.”

Bucky nodded and lit up, feeling more ashamed with his bad habit than usual. Steve didn’t seem the type to judge, but still, he tried to burn through it quickly just to get it out of the way. Steve leaned on the wall next to him and called up Sam.

“Hey, Sam, what’s up?” Steve greeted, and Bucky watched the people passing on the sidewalk, trying to pretend that he wasn’t listening to Steve’s conversation.

“Yeah, movie just got out…uh-huh. Yeah, let me ask Bucky?”

Steve pressed his finger to cover up the receiver and asked, “Sam was wondering if I’d pick up some food to bring home. He wants to know if you would want to come hang out.”

Struck a little dumb by the sudden invitation, Bucky only managed a graceless _uhhh,_ and then he faltered between an impulsive yes and feeble no.

“I’d like you to. Join us, I mean,” Steve blurted, and Bucky’s silent deliberation must have come across as hesitant rejection, because he continued, “But if you don’t want to stay out, I completely get it. I got no issue taking you home now.”

“No. I want to go,” Bucky replied quickly, and the response seemed to surprise Steve as much as it surprised himself. His social energy hadn’t been stretched this thin in who knew how long, but he figured – well, he figured a couple more hours with Steve would be all right. More than all right.

“Sure?”

“Guess I can put up with you a while longer,” he said, and Steve smiled, unaware that Bucky’s heart was beating about a hundred miles a minute. Steve brought the phone back to his face and confirmed plans with Sam while Bucky let his eyes slip shut for just a second, took one last drag of his cigarette before stomping it out on the concrete.

People would kill to get even a glimpse inside of Steve’s apartment, and here he was, being invited over. Bucky Barnes, human disaster, was finally getting a karmic break, one hell of a chance to cultivate something that could be really, truly good.

 _So don’t fuck it up, Barnes,_ he thought to himself, rubbing at his shoulder habitually.

“Bucky?”

“Huh?”

“There you are,” Steve said, “Lost you for a second. I asked if you knew what we should get to take back.”

“Joe’s, for sure. It’s only a street over. Got some of the best pizza in the city,” Bucky replied, and when Steve raised his brows, he knew he had just sparked what would be at the very _least_ a ten minute debate.

“Bold words, Barnes, especially because I know for a fact that Totonno’s is still kickin’.”

“Hey, Brooklyn born and raised, I’d be a traitor if I trashed Totonno’s. I’m just _saying,_ you can’t judge if you haven’t been to any of the new spots. And by new, I mean…since the 40s.”

“Oh, I can judge,” Steve said. “You gonna be my pizza guide of the century?”

“Couldn’t think of a better job for myself now, honestly,” he said, and when he and Steve walked themselves through the Village, somehow making interesting conversation about pizzeria rivalry, he felt something settle inside of him. It was light, and decidedly good, and maybe this was what he had been waiting for.

Maybe he had been waiting for Steve Rogers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey ya'll it's been a hot second ;;;; October came for my throat (being an adult sucks bfkfbf) but I finally, FINALLY have time to write again! I hope ya'll liked First Date, Part One (or, according to Bucky, totally not a date) - I thought about jamming the whole thing into one chapter, but I wanted to reserve the second half for Steve. I already have the next chapter started so I'm gunning for that elusive weekly update :^) Mad love for everyone who has taken time to kudo/comment, it really fuels me!
> 
> If you want to yell about Stucky with me, here's my [twitter](https://twitter.com/seafoam_sighs) and here's my [tumblr](http://laceandcaramel.tumblr.com/)!
> 
> Until next time!
> 
> *Also, for anyone who’s seen The Exorcist, you can only imagine what Steve was going through.


	5. Steve

He decided, somewhere between the car ride and the concessions line, that he liked Bucky Barnes.

His mother had once called him a good judge of character, and that was something he had vehemently stuck beside all his life, proud to hold onto. Steve knew he wasn’t one to do much in measures - if someone set his teeth on edge or made him prickly, even if it was for seemingly no real reason, he’d steer clear.

And sure, he might’ve been a little more jaded than most, but he knew his gut. On the same token, if he liked someone, it was because they seemed decent. Made him laugh. Had a direction to go and the gumption to do it.

So far, Bucky checked out. And he had a _chin dimple_. Steve hadn’t noticed it until the other man was outside of his house, wide-eyed and suddenly there in front of his face like someone had catapulted him. A chin dimple and steel blue eyes and a mouth that lilted up at the edges like it was in on a secret that no one else was.

Basically, Steve was royally fucked. Some things he knew from the jump. The night had gotten briskly cold, but he felt a little too warm under his jacket, trotting alongside Bucky past the bumping bars and clubs.

Most of the people who passed them looked so damn young, chattering loud and smelling of expensive booze. Steve felt separated from them, always standing right outside of the crowd even when he was dead in the thick of it; but right now, he could almost seep into the city’s nighttime atmosphere again.

Not only was he out with Bucky, who had proved better company than Steve could have had hoped for, but they were getting _pizza._

Since getting out of the ice – and especially since knowing Sam, who loved food almost as much as he loved his family – he had tried all kinds of meals he couldn’t have ever dreamed up when he was a kid. Pho with its soothing broth and fresh basil, spiced curry, Korean barbeque that had to be cooked at the table, shawarma and paella with mussels and everything in between.

And yet, he wasn’t sure anything could really rival a New York slice. Not in his heart, anyway.

As Bucky promised, Joe’s wasn’t anything upscale or ritzy, just a brick-block building with a classic red awning and Coke machines. It was filled with drunk Halloween party-goers, either jamming down pizza or swaying in line; Steve hadn’t seen this much cleavage and buttcheek since the last bar he had begrudgingly ended up in with Sam. It was a small place made smaller by the volume of people.

Steve couldn’t clock things in a millisecond like Natasha, but he had gotten good at reading a room, reading people. He saw the way the color drained out of Bucky’s face when they walked in, jaw ticking like he was chewing on something tough. It was the same momentary expression he had gotten when he had seen the crowds on the sidewalk.

So the guy didn’t like lots of people. Bucky had plainly stated once in a text that he didn’t get out much. This was a volume Steve could work with; he knew of some vets that couldn’t even leave their houses most of the time, much less hold down a job or go out. Bucky hadn’t offered up much information about his service, about the arm, and Steve didn’t ask.

Some things you didn’t really ask about. You just waited till they came around.

“You know what else they didn’t put in history books?” Steve asked, shouldering off his jacket. Bucky glanced at him, expression tight. Steve slung his jacket over his forearm and felt where his t-shirt was damp at the back of his neck.

“What’s that?” Bucky asked, and he sounded a bit out of breath.

“I was a bottomless pit even before the serum, always wanting to eat. I never want to look at a boiled potato again,” he said, and Bucky shifted on his feet. “And when I got really crazy for a hot dog or a slice, I’d draw pin-up girls for some of the guys by the docks to make extra cash.”

“Captain America drawing dirties for pizza? Twitter would have a field day,” Bucky replied, and his mouth loosened a little at the edges.

“They were tasteful. Honest.”

“Oh, I’m sure.”

They shuffled up in line, and Steve didn’t mind the silence between them. The guys behind the glass were throwing dough and sliding pies around as fast as possible, yelling to each other in heavy accents. It smelled like fresh tomatoes and melted cheese, and it was no surprise that his stomach yelled in protest, apparently upset at all the smells without reward.

He laid a hand beneath his ribs as Bucky finally turned his face towards Steve, eyebrows raised.

“You wrestling a bear in there?” Bucky asked, and while Steve had left behind the shame of his voracious appetite a long time ago, he was sure the tips of his ears were red.

“Might as well be,” he said, “You gonna say anything if I eat some on the way back to the car?”

“Nope. I’ll do the same thing,” Bucky said, eliciting a snort from Steve.

They ended up ordering two large pizzas, and Bucky jammed himself into a corner while they waited, bouncing his heel like he could jackhammer his way through the floor if he tried hard enough. Steve watched the kitchen make their order, commenting on a particularly high toss and the girl near the door who had passed out face down on a plate. He didn’t get much in reply, but talking seemed to keep Bucky from running out of the door.

A thick man hefted up two boxes and hollered, “ _James!”,_ which sent said man jumping about a mile out of his skin. They had given his name for the order, just to avoid any unwanted attention, but now Steve was wishing he had just given a fake name at the cash register. He grabbed their food with a quick thanks and they volleyed it out of there, back onto the street.

He held the boxes out in front of him so people were forced to weave around, and Bucky was quiet for a minute before he was opening up the top box, even while Steve walked. He yanked out two gooey slices, and Steve shifted the boxes into the crook of one arm so he could take the slice that Bucky offered.

“Did you finally just get used to people staring at you?” Bucky asked, conveniently right when Steve had stuffed a bite of pizza into his mouth.

“Where’d that question come from?” he replied (after he struggled down the mouthful of burning cheese) and Bucky waved his slice in a vague gesture.

“I dunno. From the weird amount of people I’ve seen stare at you, maybe.”

“I don’t notice it much anymore. Or I try not to. You can get used to anything.”

“Ain’t that the truth,” Bucky replied. They passed a bar with neon orange lights strung up around the windows and door, and Steve could see the looseness of Bucky’s bun, locks of dark hair starting to fall down around the harsh lines of his cheekbones and jaw.

He had the kind of strong features that Steve wanted to capture in shading, but capturing softness – that was harder. He wasn’t sure he could do justice to the way Bucky’s eyes crinkled when he laughed, and he sure as hell couldn’t justify how quickly he had noticed that, either.

When they got back to the car, Steve cranked the heat, and Bucky was given the heavy task of keeping the pizza boxes safe on his lap.

“Those better stay safe,” Steve said gravely as he backed out of the parking spot, one arm braced on the passenger seat as he twisted to look behind the car.

“I’ll protect them with my life, Captain,” Bucky replied, just as solemn, and the response somehow endeared Steve, a little squeeze giving way in his chest. If he was supposed to be getting it together, he was doing a piss poor job of it.

Driving through Manhattan – on a _holiday,_ no less – was about as hellish as expected. Bucky switched on the radio to some greatest hits channel, and it mixed in with the cacophony of honks and yelling outside of the car. With each song that came on, he asked Steve if he had heard it, and each time Steve said no, Bucky would make some varying noise of disappointment.

After seeing no less than three cabs drive up on the sidewalk and an old lady almost getting hit at a crosswalk, Steve finally managed to navigate to his neighborhood, sorely reminded of why he avoided driving in the city whenever he could.

He whipped into a parallel spot that was blessedly close to his apartment, and it was only after he had turned off the car that he realized that Bucky was staring. Not at him, but out of the window, at the apartment buildings.

“When you and Sam mentioned that you lived in the Upper East Side,” Bucky said, “I thought, you know, holy shit. But this is – holy shit.”

“We’re cheating. Stark owns our building, so we get it for dirt cheap.”

“Am I too poor to stand on the sidewalk?”

“If you’re too poor, then so am I, pal. Saving the world now and again doesn’t really make much.”

“You’re rich in morals,” Bucky deadpanned, and it startled a laugh out of Steve.

“I’ll remember that next time I’m doing my budgeting,” he said, popping the car door. Bucky followed suit, and they wandered up the sidewalk, boots crunching the mass of dead leaves that laid in a thick layer on the concrete. When he unlocked the main door and led them into the foyer, Bucky whistled.

“Always wondered what the inside of these looked like. I had to share a room with my sister until I was 13.”

“Brooklyn never won any awards for apartment space,” Steve mused. “I had to share a room with my Ma, growing up.”

“Okay, you win.”

“Wasn’t so bad. She was a nurse, she worked a lot. I was normally alone,” Steve stated. His chest ached in that small, dull way that it always did on the rare occasions that he brought up his mother. He didn’t think it’d ever really stop.

“C’mon,” he continued. “We’re on the second floor.”

Bucky dutifully clanged up the stairs behind Steve, clutching the pizzas tight to his chest. As soon as Steve opened the door, he could tell that Sam had done one of his speed clean-ups. Neither of them were really messy people, but they were human, left around socks and dirty dishes, forgot to dust. But Sam had obviously busted out the Swiffer and a few scented candles. Hell, even the coffee table was cleaned off for once.

Steve toed off his shoes, momentarily distracted by the alien cleanliness, and it was only when Bucky murmured _damn_ that he was reminded that he needed to be a good host.

“Sorry, lemme just – come in, make yourself comfortable,” Steve blustered, shutting the door behind Bucky and taking the pizzas from his hands. He laid them on the breakfast counter and put his hands on his hips, watching Bucky try to stare at the apartment and unlace his boots at the same time.

“Could you just put your shoes by the door? It’s a thing,” he said, and then called, loud, “Sam!”

There was silence, maybe the low mutter of a voice, and then his bedroom door cracked open and Sam came into the hall, talking on the phone.

“Look, you spoke of the soldier and he appeared to save the day,” Sam was saying into the phone, and then he threw it into Steve’s hand. “It’s Nat. She has questions.”

“That’s never good,” Steve sighed, looking over at Bucky, but Sam was already walking over to greet him. If anyone could make someone feel safe in a new place, it was Sam, so Steve wasn’t worried about leaving Bucky to him.

“Nat?” he asked, pressing the phone to his face and wandering over to the window nook.

“I could hear you, you know,” she replied, “My questions are always good.”

“For you, maybe.”

“Oh, usually it has a way of working out,” she said, seeming pleased. “When are you driving up here?”

“Friday.”

“I thought it was sooner?”

“Stark wants us to bring Peter. He’s green, needs help training. I said Sam and I would give him a ride up if someone could take him back on Sunday night.”

“That kid is collecting dads,” Natasha sighed. “How long are you and Sam aiming to stay?”

“A couple weeks. Plenty of time to kick your ass at poker.”

“It’ll never happen, Rogers. But…” she trailed off, “I guess stranger things can happen. Like you going out on a date.”

Steve pressed the phone harder to his face and spared a glance over to where Sam was dragging Bucky through the kitchen, no doubt showing off the appliances he’d collected during the past couple of years.

“It wasn’t a date,” Steve said lowly. “Why, did Sam call it a date?”

“Did you want it to be a date?”

“That’s not the point.”

“Oh, I’m sure it’s not,” she said primly. “And I’ll let you get back to it. Sam _also_ mentioned that you were bringing him back to the apartment. I have to say, Rogers, you’ve gotten bold.”

“Does Sam tell you everything?” Steve asked, swerving hard around her insinuation, really unwilling to add lighter fluid to that flame. He should have never introduced Sam and Nat to each other; it was chaos, mostly because their gossip always ended up using Steve as a hot topic.

“Yes, he does. Anyway, I expect a full report when I see you on Friday. Preferably over a game of poker, while I’m winning.”

“Never been more excited,” Steve said dryly, and when Natasha laughed into the phone, he couldn’t even bother to be irritated.

“See you soon,” she said, and ended the call before he could even say goodbye. Steve stared at the phone for a second, wondering what _else_ Sam had said to Nat when he wasn’t around. Traitors, the both of them.

He meandered his way over to the kitchen, where Sam was slapping the side of the coffee maker and explaining the functions to Bucky, who was genuinely trying to seem interested but mostly just looked lost.

“I drink black coffee,” Bucky was saying, and Steve leaned his elbows on the counter, smiling at the pained expression that crossed Sam’s face.

“You never break the mold a little? Lattes?”

“Nope. Just sludge.”

“Jesus, you sound like Steve talking about war coffee,” Sam said.

“Nothing like a fresh pot of boiled pond water and cheap recycled grounds,” Steve said, and Sam pursed his mouth in disgust, probably imagining the taste.

In the bright light of the kitchen, it occurred to Steve that a man he might never have met was now in his home, mismatched socks and unraveling hair and all. Bucky had slipped off his jacket and right glove, leaving him in a well-loved blue flannel and dark shirt; his body filled out the clothes with their hidden bulk, and Steve couldn’t help but wonder what he looked like beneath the layers.

It was a leading thought, one that he refused to follow.

Steve turned away, going to hang his jacket on the coat rack while Sam clattered through the pantry to find plates for the three of them.

“You want a beer?” he asked Bucky, who answered with a simple, “Sure.”

“Steve? You want a useless beer?”

“Wouldn’t turn it down,” he replied. They had a little space for a dining area with a small kitchen table by the window (produced from Ikea, which had been a trip that tested the bounds of his and Sam’s friendship). Sam handed him the plates and pizza boxes to throw on the tabletop, and Steve yanked out a chair for Bucky to sit.

“What do ya’ll wanna play?” Sam asked, pulling a deck of cards from the junk drawer, “Blackjack or Bullshit?”

“Bullshit,” Bucky answered, “I got nothing to bet for blackjack, ‘sides some pocket lint. Maybe a couple quarters.”

Steve sat down next to him, stretching his leg out beside the table and reaching to open the top pizza box. The cheese had congealed a little, not as hot as it was when they had eaten it going down the street, but his stomach still grumbled at the sight.

“Bullshit it is,” Steve said, breaking off a slice and sitting it on Bucky’s plate, which seemed the gentlemanly thing to do. Sam frowned when Steve didn’t bother handing him anything.

“You’re horrible at it,” Sam muttered, grabbing his own pizza as if he’d been personally affronted. They ate with idle chatter while Sam slowly shuffled the cards in between bites, and Steve, in rare form, didn’t question the contentment he felt. It wasn’t often that he got to be _still_ in one place, not off running in fifteen different directions in an attempt to feel useful.

“You fill Nat in on everything?” Sam asked, tapping the cards on the table to even the deck out, and Steve would have known how many different meanings the question had even without looking at him.

“Told her we’d be there on Friday with Peter. A couple weeks, at least,” he said, and added for petty measure, “Figured you’d filled her in on most everything.”

“Hey, I only work with the intel I got,” Sam answered, his face schooled into a mask of nonchalance, but Steve had known him for long enough now to know he was trying not to laugh.

“Where’s ‘there?’” Bucky asked suddenly, “Or is that something I’m not supposed to know?”

“I think if you weren’t supposed to know, we wouldn’t be talking about it over dinner,” Steve mused, and Bucky’s eyes flicked upwards for a split second in what Steve realized was a quickly canceled eye roll. He nearly snorted.

“Upstate,” he answered, “We set up a mid-base there. It’s easier to use for stock and training without the press watching everything we do.”

“It’s also a pain in the ass to get to,” Sam added as he started to deal the cards, “especially when you gotta drive it with Parker.”

“Peter is a good kid.”

“A good kid that never stops talking,” he said, and pointed at Bucky. “You know Spiderman?”

“Not personally. We don’t text or anything.”

“Smartass. You wouldn’t want to anyway. He uses too many emojis.”

“ _You_ use emojis, Sam,” Steve pointed out.

“I don’t make entire sentences out of them.”

“You gonna finish dealing, or are you gonna keep complaining?”

Sam slapped down a card in front of Steve with a little more force than necessary, grumbling, but at least leaving the Peter topic alone. Until a muttered, “And he makes us stop every hour at gas stations to piss and buy more snacks.”

“You buy scratch-off tickets at every station we’re at. What’s your point?”

“I won 50 bucks on that last one, Rogers, don’t forget.”

Bucky picked up his deck and splayed them out quickly with a flick of his thumb. Steve noticed that he had his prosthetic settled resolutely in his lap, gloved hand resting on one thick thigh. It took a moment for him to realize that he was staring – not at the hand, but at the way Bucky’s legs were splayed, the muscles underneath straining the black material of his jeans.

He quickly jerked his gaze away, only to meet eyes with Sam, who lifted his eyebrows a little before clearing his throat and looking down at his cards. Steve braced an elbow on the table and hoped that he, at the very least, had a good hand.

Sam laid two cards facedown, and said, “Two clubs. I’m gonna know if ya’ll are lying, by the way.”

A disbelieving ‘uh-huh’ was all he got from Bucky, who laid down two more cards and shrugged. “Three.”

“Four,” Steve said, laying down exactly four cards, and Sam squinted.

“You have _four_ fours?”

“Little early for you to be this suspicious, Wilson.”

There wasn’t any real squabbling until Bucky laid down four jacks, and Sam called him for bullshit, only to sputter when Bucky turned them over to reveal that he hadn’t been lying.

“You were hiding them up your sleeve,” Sam stressed, and Bucky took a swig of beer, releasing it with a pop of his lips.

“Nope.”

“There’s no way you got all the jacks in the deck.”

“Well, it sure looks like I did,” he said, and Steve let out a huff of laughter that he quickly smothered with his beer.

“Better take those cards,” Steve said, and Sam turned them all over before taking them into his hand, just to make some sort of convoluted point. As it turned out, about half of the sequences were wrong, and he let out a drawn out whistle.

“It looks like ya’ll didn’t even _try.”_

“Some of those lies are yours,” Steve said. “At least now I know not to have any faith in either of you.”

“A dark day in hell when even Captain America won’t believe you,” Bucky said, and Sam laughed, and then laughed harder when Steve saluted them good-naturedly.

“I live to serve,” Steve said, lying down two cards, but before he could even claim them as queens, Bucky immediately cut him off with, “Oh, bullshit.”

Steve stared at him, keeping his fingers on the cards.

“You sure you wanna do that, Barnes?”

“Turn ‘em over, hero,” he said, and Steve hated how he knew he was flushing when he turned the cards over to reveal a queen and a five. Sam clucked in faux-disappointment as Steve took the cards back and shuffled what he had left in his hands.

“Didn’t even try to be honest off the jump, huh?” Sam said.

“I’ve been around cheats too long,” Steve sighed.

“I’m still trying to figure out how Nat wins every game of poker, because you _know_ her sneaky ass is cheating.”

“No one will ever prove it. And if they did, they’d probably conveniently disappear after.”

“Not to say any of this to try and convince you to never hang out with us again,” Sam told Bucky, who polished off his beer with one good swig and shook his head.

“I hang out with a guy who filled a kiddie pool with gasoline and then threw a Zippo in it. Some cheating at a card game doesn’t really bother me.”

Sam blinked, staring at Bucky, then he shook his head and laid down three cards, apparently not even able to respond to the statement. There was a brief silence, then:

“…Bullshit.”

“Come _on_.”

“Am I wrong?”

As it turned out, Bucky was perfectly right.

 

 

* * *

 

 

They played for a solid two hours and drank themselves through a pack of beer (at least, Sam and Bucky did, since Steve gave up after his first one). It ended after Sam got fed up with Bucky winning every single game, and he threw down his remaining cards after Bucky used his free hand to finish off the last of his drink.

“You’re as bad as Nat. I’m done,” he groaned, leaning back, and Steve picked up the empty card box to start shuffling them back in neatly.

“Grew up around a lot of card playing. It was pretty much that or fishing during every Barnes family vacation,” Bucky said, and Steve didn’t miss the hint of smugness in his voice. Before either of them could respond, Bucky’s phone started ringing in his pocket. He fished it out, glanced at the screen, and unlocked.

“Hey, Becks,” he said, paused, and then continued as he stood, “Yeah, hold on.”

He pressed the phone against his shirt and told them, “I’m gonna step out for a second.”

“Front door doesn’t lock automatically. Just let yourself back in,” Steve said, and Bucky nodded, socked feet slipping quietly over the hardwood. He stepped into the hallway, and Steve could hear the, ‘okay, I’m here’ before his voice was muffled by the closed door.

Steve stood to start clearing away the empty beer bottles and plates, and steadily kept cleaning up even when it was obvious that Sam was staring a burning hole straight through him. The chair creaked as Sam leaned forward, and started with a punctuated, “ _So.”_

“Oh, God.”

“I didn’t say anything yet.”

“But you’re about to.”

“That’s the point of talking, Steve. And I just feel it’s my responsibility - ”

“Your responsibility, Sam, really - ”

“ - _to tell you_ that you’ve looked happy all night,” Sam finished, and that actually shut Steve up. He let the plates clatter into the sink, not looking over at where Sam still sat at the table.

“He’s a good man,” Steve said, simply, and it was honest.

“I could barely get him to say more than a dozen words to me when I met him. I think he’s comfortable around you,” Sam said, and then held up a hand as if in defense, even though Steve hadn’t replied yet. “And that’s not me trying to counselor talk at you.”

“Thanks, Sam.”

“Sure thing,” Sam said, getting himself to his feet to help Steve clear off the rest of the table. It was blessedly quiet between them until Sam tacked on, “And he really ain’t hard to look at, huh?”

“There it is,” Steve muttered, and Sam clapped a hand onto his shoulder.

“The man threw a chair for you. He’s a romantic. And we both know you’re a sap deep down, Rogers.”

Steve was working through a retort (and failing, because his arsenal of backhanded replies weren’t _always_ at the ready, he just mostly got lucky) when the front door clicked. Bucky walked back in, and Sam started talking about what he was going to do the next day, easy as anything. Steve knew, as anyone did who befriended Sam, that the conversation was very far from over.

“I’m gonna go see Sarah tomorrow,” he said, “She keeps nagging at me to come over and help her clear out that spare room. You gonna go with me?”

“Am I going to get talked into rearranging furniture again?” Steve asked. Sam’s sister and niece were, by proxy, Steve’s family – he watched out for them the same as he would Sam, because the Wilsons had been especially proficient in making Steve feel cared for.

“Maybe. You’ll probably just end up playing with Gabby while the adults do all the hard work. I’m starting to think she likes you more than me.”

“I hope so,” Steve said, “She’s my favorite Wilson.”

“You know, I’d be hurt, but I don’t blame you,” Sam said, and raised a hand as he walked toward the hallway, “I’m goin’ to bed. Ya’ll try not to burn the place down.”

“No promises,” Bucky said from where he was leaned against the arm of the couch, right hand crossed over his body. He was rubbing at his shoulder absently.

“Just don’t let Steve use the stove.”

“I’m not the one who set the alarms off on our first day in this place,” Steve said, raising his eyebrows, and Sam didn’t bother to respond with anything but a middle finger when he disappeared down the hall and shut his bedroom door.

“You have a charmed home life, Steve,” Bucky said, and when Steve turned to him, those shapely lips were curved up in a smile, just at the edges. He wondered if he could draw them correctly later, without seeing the reference in person, if he could commit them to memory.

Somehow, he thought he might be able to.

“Don’t know what I’d do without him,” Steve said, lightly, but the statement was honest. Bucky nodded and shoved himself away from the couch, wandering over to the back wall of the living room. Sam had insisted that they decorate, pick out furniture and décor that actually made them feel at home; it had taken Steve a little while to figure out what he even _liked._

This place was covered in framed pictures, paintings that Steve bought from street vendors, modern shelves that Sam had tacked up to put books on. Bucky stopped in front of a drawing Gabby had given Sam a long time ago, and it was no more than crude crayon lines, the shape maybe trying to emerge as a person. Or a horse. There was no way of knowing.

“I think that was the first drawing Gabby ever gave him,” Steve pointed out, “He keeps everything she gives him.”

“That his niece?” Bucky asked, not looking over. He reached up with his hand, almost like he might touch the glass of the frame, but then he dropped it.

“Yeah. Between Sam and Sarah, that kid has enough attitude to make a grown man cry.”

“And you. I’m sure you only got so much good influence to give,” Bucky said, then continued, “Becca used to spend about every weekend making stuff for me and my ma. You know that goddamn macaroni art? She loved that stuff. And making those hokey hemp bracelets. I wore those stupid things even when my friends ragged on me for it.”

Steve didn’t know the first thing about macaroni art or hemp bracelets, but he nodded along anyway, trying to imagine Bucky as a kid, just a boy growing up in Brooklyn as Steve had been. He didn’t say anything when Bucky sidestepped, moving on to a barrage of pictures that Sam had hung in a zig-zagging line.

There were photos of Sam’s late mother and father, his sister and niece, one of himself and Sam standing outside of the Washington Monument – and then, Bucky pointed at Steve’s personal favorite, turning to him with wide eyes.

“You know how much this picture would be worth if anyone ever tried to sell it?” Bucky asked.

“Nat would probably hunt down whoever got their hands on it,” Steve replied blithely, knowing that their framed copy was, in fact, the _only_ copy. It was relatively recent, before Sokovia – all of the original Avengers on the bar level of Stark tower, looking oddly young and the same all at once. No one was in suit, and no one was posed; he couldn’t remember who had even taken it, but they had all been arguing about something.

It was a mess of a scene, mostly half-closed eyes and blurry hands while they were talking over each other, but he figured it was the best capture of how they all were when they weren’t on duty.

“I’m not sure what to focus on,” Bucky said, squinting at the photo. “You have a good blink happening there.”

“I’d say it’s one of the better pictures of me.”

“You couldn’t look bad if you tried,” he commented, and Steve was helpless against the surge of pleasure that zipped through his chest at the off-hand compliment, unsure if Bucky had really meant anything by it. It seemed to take him a second to register what he said, because then he was glancing at Steve quickly, adding, “Or, that’s – not that I would know.”

“Flattery will get you nowhere, Barnes,” Steve replied (which was about the fattest lie he could have told), and there it was, the satisfaction that he felt when Bucky’s mouth twitched into a smile, like he had said the right thing; like this, of all things, might be easy. Bucky made it feel easy.

“Can’t blame a guy for telling the truth,” he said, looking away, and Steve had hit his head real hard plenty of times in his life, but he knew he wasn’t hallucinating the flush on Bucky’s cheeks. He thought, vaguely and a little wildly, that he could keep this going, and flirting wasn’t exactly his area of _expertise,_ but –

“Shit. I gotta call a car,” Bucky sighed, cutting Steve off at the heel with anything he might’ve said. He glanced at the clock on the wall – he liked manual clocks, they made him feel steady – and the gold hands told him that it was just past one in the morning.

“I have work in, uh, four hours.”

“Lemme take you back. I lost track of time,” he said, already going to get the keys from the hook by the door, and Bucky trailed after him.

“Nah, it’s fine.”

“I gave you a ride here, I can give you a ride back. It’s no issue,” he insisted. Bucky’s expression was unsure, like he was deciding if he wanted to protest or not, but then he clicked his tongue and nodded.

“The Uber drivers always get weirder at night, anyway,” Bucky said, grabbing his jacket and bending to put his boots on.

“Nice to know I’m a step up.”

Steve shoved his feet into some sneakers he had by the door and waited while Bucky tightened up his laces and stuffed them down the side of his shoes so they wouldn’t be flapping loose. He held open the door, standing aside so the other man could go through and he could lock up behind them.

And it’s not that Steve forgot that he was big, but he occasionally didn’t understand how much _space_ he took up, because Bucky had to squeeze past him to get through the doorway before he could step back. He could smell the shampoo from Bucky’s hair, something like cloves, and his broad arm brushed the swell of Steve’s chest. It was an accidental touch, but it was warm, and weirdly comforting, the kind of reminder of how nice another person could feel in just being close.

He followed Bucky out into the cold night, hands shoved in his pockets. He appreciated the sting of autumn air on his flushed face, feeling too warm even in a t-shirt. The evening had gone well, it had been _good,_ but time seemed to slip by so fast. It didn’t feel like he had just hung out with Bucky for hours – if anything, he could do it for hours more.

The car ride back was peaceful; despite the cold outside, Bucky cracked the window and leaned his temple against the glass, breath ghosting along the surface. The late-night radio host was playing jazz, and some of it Steve actually recognized. He let his fingers tap out a steady rhythm on his thigh, steering with one hand through the streets back to Brooklyn.

“Hey,” Bucky said when they turned onto his avenue, cruising past the squatty brownstones, “Thanks for the ride.”

“Yeah, of course.”

“And thanks for – you know, tonight. The whole thing. It was a good time,” he continued, still looking out the window.

“I’m glad we got to meet,” Steve replied, “For more than five seconds on the street, I mean.”

He parked outside of Bucky’s building, and they looked over at each other on impulse. Bucky’s face was shadowed in the dark of the car, and Steve could see him worrying his bottom lip, the full shape of it sinking with the pressure of his teeth.

“Can I ask you something?”

“Sure.”

“Why’d you really write me that letter?” Bucky asked, and Steve paused, pulse pumping harder as he ran through the different answers. None of them were wrong: _you were brave, you were beautiful, I wanted to see what happened, maybe I’m lonely._

“I almost didn’t. I thought it might seem weird, me looking you up and sending you something out of nowhere. But I just kept thinking about coming around that block, and there you were, not having any sense. I know you said you didn’t mean to, but it – you didn’t have to help,” he answered instead, and rubbed at the back of his neck, thinking for a second before he continued, “I figured you might be a good one. And I was right.”

Bucky’s eyebrows creased, expression tensing up, and a bite of nervousness grabbed Steve when he wondered what he had said wrong, if Bucky had been expecting something else, something more or less.

“You know how to make a guy feel special, huh?” Bucky replied, but his voice was missing that cocky edge that he had managed a few times during the evening. Steve opened his mouth to say something, he wasn’t sure what, but Bucky cut him off with a, “Thanks. I know I said that already, but I mean it.”

“What’s that thanks for?”

“I think you can figure that one out,” he said, popping the door and sliding out. He ducked his head just below the door frame to smile at Steve. “I’ll see you around?”

“Guess you will,” Steve said, and Bucky went to close the door, but then Steve’s fat mouth was opening again, unable able to stop the, “Bucky!”

“Yeah?” he asked, quickly ducking his head back down again.

“What are you doing tomorrow? Or -” Steve glanced at the clock, “Today, I guess.”

Bucky blinked, hand shifting over the corner of the car door, and he replied, “Nothing, besides work. Why? You got something in mind?”

 

 

* * *

 

 

When morning came, Steve and Sam took the subway from Manhattan to Queens, both of them clutching coffee and watching the scenery through smeared glass as they rumbled by. Sarah lived in a townhouse near Woodside, one of the many things she had kept after her divorce. She was an ER doctor with a rare weekday off, so Steve wasn’t surprised to see how dark the circles beneath her eyes were anymore.

The spare room was filled with items that had belonged to their late parents, things that had never been given away or sold that Sarah was tired of looking at. He had no idea how to sort any of the belongings, so he had volunteered to keep Gabby entertained while they decided what to do with everything.

He sat with the little girl in the living room, ass cold on the hardwood floor because Gabby’s tiny plastic pink table was only about three feet tall. He could hear Sam and Sarah arguing upstairs, followed by a loud thump as someone dropped who knew what, and then Sarah’s, “ _Really,_ Sam?”

Gabby didn’t so much as look up, too busy scribbling with her crayons while a Disney movie played in the background (at this point, he had listened to Ariel sing so many times that he had memorized the words and just refused to admit it).

Steve was sketching idly, just the shapes of faces or twist of bodies, the waxy texture of the crayons challenging his shading. He had brought his pencils, but Gabby had whined that he wasn’t using crayons like her, so he immediately switched over.

They made it through all of Little Mermaid before Gabby got bored, and then she was asking for cereal, and then she was asking him to clip neon barrettes in the dark cloud of her hair. If anything could pass time quickly, it was hanging out with Gabby, and he was busy bouncing her on his shoulders when he glanced at the TV clock and saw that it was already 11.

“Sam!” he yelled, moving to the bottom of the narrow staircase, and there was a clatter of something being kicked before Sam appeared at the top of the stairs. Gabby waved at him from the perch of Steve’s height, and he waved back.

“What’s up?”

“I gotta get going,” he said, and Gabby leaned over to try and see his face, clutching his hair.

“You going?” she asked, sounding a little affronted, and he swore that no one could sound as disappointed as a 7-year-old. “Where?”

“I promised to see my friend,” Steve answered.

“Gabs, you wanna come up here and help me and your Ma?”

“I wanna stay with _Steve.”_

“Steve has to go, Gabby. You want him to be late?”

Steve pried Gabby off of him and she marched up the stairs, where Sam grabbed her hand.

“Bye, Steve!” Sarah called from the backroom, obviously having been listening to the whole thing, and he hollered his goodbyes to the household before he grabbed his jacket. He could hear Sam upstairs, muttering, and then Sarah yelled again, “Good luck on your date!”

“It’s not a date!” Steve yelled back as he opened the door, and the chorus of their laughter followed him right out onto the street.

 

 

* * *

 

 

He figured that when he finally went here, he’d go it alone.

Not that it bothered him – he had gotten used to doing most things alone for his entire life, whether it was meals or movies or walks through the park. Sam wasn’t always available, nor his other teammates, but sitting around doing nothing drove him up a wall.

There were other people milling about in the brightly-lit room, a group of women murmuring in Korean and a couple with their hands locked together. The rooms with the paintings were so small compared to the huge domes of space that had held the statues, the relics.

They had somehow meandered their way into the European art section, and Steve stared at the huge painting that hung above his head, a scene of what he assumed were gods in heaven, horses and cherubs emerging from the clouds in a spiral of the sky.

“’Allegory of the Planets and Continents’,” Bucky said as he came to stand beside Steve, jacket draped over his arm. He leaned in to squint at the little plaque beside the painting, and read aloud, “The canvas, which is among Tiepolo's largest and most dazzling oil sketches, represents Apollo…something something, 1752…something, oh, it was his greatest achievement. We’re looking at a greatest achievement.”

“You sound real professional.”

“Thanks, I learned how to read in elementary school. I just didn’t say anything because I didn’t want to seem like I was trying to impress you,” he replied, and Steve’s chuckle sounded far too loud in the quiet of the room.

When Steve had asked him in the early morning if he would want to go visit the Met, he had half expected Bucky to say no, but Bucky had only said, _haven’t been there in years. You gonna buy me a souvenir?_

And so here they were. Finally, Steve was surrounded by history that was older than him.

Bucky unfolded the little map that the overly-helpful employee had given them at the entrance lobby, and he said, “I wanna go see all the armor.”

“Where’s that?”

“Uh, around the American wing. Hey, they got rooms that have stuff from the early 1900s. Maybe they stole some of your furniture.”

“I think the Smithsonian took everything I ever owned. They would have framed used tissues if they could have gotten their hands on them,” Steve said, following Bucky as he moved towards the exit.

“I’m gonna start stealing your tissues to sell on Ebay,” Bucky said, smashing the map shut. They took their time wandering over, getting distracted by all of the medieval sculptures and statues that towered over them on pillars.

Bucky liked reading the little plaques by whatever drew his attention, obviously in no rush; Steve paused by the entrance of the American wing, waiting for him to catch up from where he had stopped to look at a large tapestry.

From a distance, even a short one, he supposed that Bucky could be anyone, just a man whittling away hours in a museum. He watched the way Bucky leaned forward a little, mouth barely moving while he read silently, his right hand massaging his left shoulder in what seemed to be habit. His hoodie was ripped at the hem, hair only half in a bun like he had rushed to put it up.

When his chest tightened at the sight, he didn’t even try to brush the feeling away. Bucky straightened up and came over to him, still prodding at his shoulder, and Steve smiled almost automatically.

“So, not to scare you,” Bucky said, and nodded upwards, “but there’s a really terrifying statue of Jesus hanging over your head.”

Steve turned and looked up, and sure enough, a huge bronze Jesus on the cross was staring balefully down at the entire room. Beneath him was a sleek sign that read, ‘ _Arms and Armor, American Wing’_.

“Oh, that’s nothing. I saw worse every time I went to Mass.”

“My folks always tried to get us to go to church, but it didn’t stick,” Bucky said as they walked into the armory. “My dad was more serious about the whole thing, but my ma kind of wanted us to figure things out for ourselves.”

“Did you?” Steve asked, “Figure things out?”

“Still working on it. Never thought about faith much until I had to, honestly,” Bucky said, and Steve didn’t miss the way his brows pinched together.

“I can understand,” he said, and dropped the subject; they wandered past the hanging displays of swords, the blades worn by time and possibly use. The entire room was a conglomeration of armor and weapons from different cultures, and Steve’s eye wasn’t sure where to land.

“I wanna see what this is all about,” Bucky said, jerking his thumb at the huge horse statues that ran through the middle of the hall, empty metal suits of soldier’s armor sitting atop their backs, gauntlets posed to hold the reins. Steve opened his mouth to agree, but a tap on the shoulder followed by an, ‘uh, excuse me?’ made him pause.

Standing behind him, about a foot shorter and a hundred pounds less, was a girl. Her cheeks were flushing nearly as red as her hair, and she had a phone in her perfectly manicured hand. Steve knew where this was going.

“Captain? Can I take a picture with you?” she asked, and he smiled at her politeness.

“Sure,” he answered, and her face crumpled into relief. He swiveled to stand next to her, bending at the knee so that she didn’t have to strain her arm up to even get him in the shot. Her hand was shaking while she took the picture, but at least Steve didn’t blink or move like he did for half of the selfies he ended up in.

“Thank you so much,” she said. “I thought it was you but I didn’t want to bother you.”

“Not a bother at all,” he said. Bucky, who had taken a couple steps back and watched the exchange silently, shifted back up next to him. The girl’s eyes flickered from Steve to Bucky, and then back to Steve, like she was trying to figure something out.

“Um,” she started, and then gestured vaguely at the display of riding soldiers that they had been heading towards, “Do you want me to take your picture?”

“You want another picture?”

“I mean, do you want me to take a picture of the two of you?” she asked, and Steve blinked. “It’s hard to get selfies with that kind of stuff.”

“Sure, that’d be great,” Bucky cut in, and Steve raised his eyebrows when he slapped his phone into the girl’s hand. She unlocked the camera from the side and Bucky jostled Steve’s shoulder. “You gonna pose with me, Rogers?”

“You giving me a choice?” he asked, but the question came out with less sarcasm than he had hoped. He really just sounded confused, even to himself. They walked back a few feet, and Bucky shifted his arm over Steve’s shoulders while the girl focused the camera on them.

He stared at the profile of Bucky’s face, marveling at the warm, heavy weight of his right arm and the way he smelled like the bakery he had come from, burnt sugar and flour and sweat. Bucky glanced at him and quirked a brow, so Steve quickly looked at the camera, mouth turning up into a smile that, in rare form, didn’t feel forced for a photo.

It only lasted for a few seconds, Bucky’s hard body lined up next to his, and then Bucky was slipping away to go get his phone back from the girl.

“Thanks,” Bucky said, and she nodded quickly.

“I took more than one,” she said, “just to make sure. But, uh – thank you for the photo, Captain, I’m glad I finally got to meet you. I’ve always hoped I’d run into you out somewhere, and that’s – you know, have a good day, okay?”

“You too,” he replied, and she smiled before nearly running away, heels clacking against the floor.

“She was cute,” Bucky said from next to him, swiping through his phone.

“You gonna pawn that photo off beside my used tissues?” Steve asked, bracing a hand on his hip, and Bucky snorted.

“Don’t tempt me,” he muttered. “You should be thankful. Now if I get hit by a car or you get eaten by an alien, there’s actual photo evidence that we ever hung out.”

“You planning to get hit by a car anytime soon?”

“Not really, but I am pretty shit at waiting for the green at crosswalks,” he said, and when Steve laughed, Bucky smiled like he had been waiting for it.

 

 

* * *

 

 

That night, Steve lay in his bed with the sheets turned down, the speakers gently thumping when Frank Sinatra’s baritone swung low. Sam had made playlists of popular songs from each decade so Steve could figure out what artists he liked (and had missed out on), and he was shuffling somewhere in the 60s. A cold breeze was coming in through the open window, but Steve didn’t mind the goosebumps that spiked up on his arms, too satisfied with his slouch to bother getting up for a shirt.

He had spent the evening with Sam, sitting on the couch and watching crime shows and deftly avoiding the thousands of questions he got asked about Bucky. He gave Sam the rundown of the day, just to satisfy him, and nothing Steve said was untrue (he just so happened to leave out how he had felt about the whole thing).

He and Bucky had spent hours in the Met, and Steve had ended up buying him a t-shirt from the souvenir shop – _like you asked,_ he had told Bucky, which was worth it to watch him roll his eyes while he took the gift bag from Steve’s hand. They had stopped for burgers at a neon-themed restaurant and eaten their weight before Steve took Bucky home, and that was that.

 _That’s that?_ Sam had asked, one eyebrow raised, and Steve nodded and drank his beer without making eye contact.

In a couple days, they’d leave for Upstate, and he found himself strangely neutral about the whole thing. Usually he looked forward to going north and training, the break in monotony, but all he could really think about was if Bucky would text him while he was gone. They hadn’t talked about Steve’s impending absence.

He sat down his sketchbook on the bedside table, the page filled with half, fleeting drawings – a scatter of leaves, the wingspan of a bird, a bowed mouth and cleft chin that were clearly recognizable. Steve got up to turn the lights off, and grabbed his phone before falling into bed and rolling on his side. He checked his alarms and calendar before pulling up his texts.

He opened up his and Bucky’s thread, stared at the last message that Bucky had sent him about being ready to go whenever Steve got there, and then typed, _Night, Buck_ before setting it down by his pillow. It wasn’t that he was _waiting_ , because it was 1 in the morning and there was no way to know if Bucky was asleep, but Steve didn’t make any effort to shut his eyes or silence his phone.

When it dinged about five minutes later, he picked it up maybe a little bit quicker than was necessary.

_Bucky: night, steve_

_Bucky: remember me after I’ve been hit by a car_

A picture loaded on the screen, and Steve tapped it to make it bigger. It was himself and Bucky, standing in the middle of the armory from earlier that day. Bucky’s arm looked steady across Steve’s shoulder, leaning into him a little bit, a lock of loose hair framing his face.

And Steve – well, his posture was awkward, arms hanging like he didn’t know what to do with them, but his face was opened into a smile that he hardly saw on himself from the outside in.

He stared at the picture in the dark of the room, until the phone screen dimmed and locked, and then he reopened it and stared some more.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is way, WAY longer than I planned for it to be, but here we are......9,000 fatass words just because I have zero self-control. Thank ya'll so much for reading and leaving feedback, it really just charms me so much. FYI, it might be a couple weeks before I update this guy; there's a post-CW/pre-IW oneshot that I've been dying to write forever that I'll be working on!! 
> 
> Yell at me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/seafoam_sighs) or [tumblr](http://laceandcaramel.tumblr.com/)!
> 
> Till next time ya'll


	6. Bucky

It was hard to admit that he’d lived the last few years of his life waiting for the other shoe to drop.

His mother nervously called them his _moods,_ and he guessed that wasn’t far off; there was the Bucky of before, and the Bucky of after. He sometimes resented his younger self for the little things he stressed over, the way he just went about his day, the stability.

God, he missed the stability. He knew beyond a doubt that he was better now than he had been, wasn’t nearly as prone to flying into rages over the slightest irritation or ignoring the outside world for weeks in favor of laying listlessly in bed. Still, he hovered restlessly around his own emotions, constantly waiting for something to set him off like a damn bear trap.

He woke slowly on Sunday, laid on his side and stared at the gift bag from the MET that sat by his hamper. It was well past morning, maybe near noon if the bright light that cracked through the accidental gap in his curtains was anything to go by. Bucky didn’t bother to get up, not because he felt that he _couldn’t,_ but because he was comfortable. His feet were warm under the old patchwork quilt. He wiggled his toes for good measure, and realized with dawning clarity that he felt all right.

Not amazing. Not horrible. Just content, and maybe a little fuzzy at the edges while the lull of sleep faded away. After his couple of days out with Steve, he had resigned himself to wake up one morning feeling empty and exhausted in a way that only a drop could do. But each morning came, and he had functioned through the days, had gotten groceries and gone to Friday patio barbeque with Wade and Al, didn’t want to run out halfway through his work shift.

 _Recovery isn’t linear, James,_ his therapist had said once, back when he was unwillingly corralled into her office three times a week. _Give it a chance. All we can ever ask for is time and effort. You’ll get to a place where you have more good days than hard ones._

At the time, hopeless and spitfire mad as he was, he hadn’t believed a word she said (he wished he could go back and tell her, begrudgingly, that she might have been onto something). He loved good days. He loved whole _strings_ of good days.

Bucky sat up, cautiously waiting for the urge to lie back down and go back to sleep, but it didn’t sift in. He got to his feet, stiff from having actually stayed in one position through the night, and stretched hard enough that he groaned.

This, he could definitely work with. He grabbed his phone from the bedside table and unlocked it while he wandered over to the bathroom. His guess had been right – it was only 15 minutes till noon, and he had a text message waiting for him.

_Steve: Morning :)_

Along with a picture of what appeared to be a huge gymnasium, and Sam was in the corner of the shot, peace signing like he was delighted to be there at the crack of dawn when his facial expression clearly suggested otherwise. Steve had sent the messages at 6:30, and Bucky was really starting to think that the guy didn’t even sleep for more than 4 hours a night.

It also didn’t escape his notice that Steve had been texting him good night and good morning since Wednesday, but he’d be the last to admit that it made him flutter like a goddamned teenager.

He sat on the edge of the tub and flipped the water on, the showerhead sputtering several times before it actually decided to work.

_B: morning_

_B: i can still say that since it’s technically morning_

_B: Sam sure looks happy to be there_

He put his phone on the sink and quickly stripped off his boxers so he could jump into the shower. Now that they were in November, mornings weren’t the time to be standing around naked in an apartment that couldn’t heat itself worth a damn.

His phone dinged with a new message while he was halfway through shampooing his hair, and his mouth automatically twitched up into a smile. He hurried to finish up and dry off, the drain gurgling as it tried to suck down the water that had collected at the base of the tub.

_Steve: Glad to see you got your beauty rest_

_B: who said i just woke up?_

_Steve: If you’d been awake, you would have answered hours ago to make a crack about Sam._

_B: wow good usage of deduction there steve_

_Steve: So that means I was right_

_B: unfortunately_

_B: you done with training yet?_

_Steve: Not even close_

_Steve: We’ll be here all day. Nat is kicking Peter around on the mats as we speak._

_B: just a regular family friendly vacation_

_Steve: Never a dull moment. Are you heading over to your sister’s?_

_B: yeah. wish me luck. i know they’re gonna make me move all the heavy shit_

Bucky tossed his phone on the bed, yanked on an old pair of jeans with paint stains and a flannel that was ripped at the elbows. He wasn’t exactly excited about using his day off to move furniture, but Becca was all teary about her friend moving out and it was as good an excuse as any to see her.

So he called a car and shelled out the money that it took to get into Manhattan; his driver didn’t bother talking to him – thank god – and when Bucky got to the apartment there was already a moving van parked crookedly on the street.

“Bucky!” Becca called when she saw him walking up the sidewalk. She all but threw the box she had been holding into the back of the truck so she could run to hug him, and he ruffled her hair despite knowing it would earn him a slap.

“Hey, Becks. You doing okay?”

“Oh, yeah, well – you know, I’m sad. But I’m glad you’re here. We already got most of the little stuff out of the way. There’s really only the furniture left.”

“Great,” he managed, because Becca lived on the fourth floor in about the tiniest goddamn apartment in Manhattan since it was all they could afford. He could already feel his good arm cursing him for all it was worth.

They tromped up the narrow stairwell, and Bucky said his hellos to Teagan and The Boyfriend (Jacob? Jonah?). There wasn’t much fanfare; he and The Boyfriend went into Becca and Teagan’s shared room to hoist the mattress onto its side and shove it out. Getting it down was chaos, and Bucky – who had gotten the wonderful job of going backwards on the stairs – shouldered the thing with about all his strength so that it wouldn’t crush him.

It was a long, _long_ hour of moving the furniture, and then he had to crawl into the back of the moving truck to help them rearrange and strap everything down. By the time that all of Teagan’s belongings were out of the apartment, Bucky’s hair was plastered to his temples with sweat.

He sat on the curb and smoked a cigarette while the girls said their goodbyes, idly messing around on his phone. He resolutely ignored Wade’s texts about them putting a disco ball in the shared hallway, electing instead to flip through previous texts with Steve. They hadn’t spoken since Bucky had gotten to Becca’s, and he started to ask Steve what he was doing before he backspaced all of it.

 _wish you were here,_ he typed instead, and sent it before he could chicken out and delete it.

Since their trip on Wednesday, Bucky could at least – somewhat, kind of, maybe – admit that he had an interest in Steve. Calling it a _crush_ made him feel like he was still in high school, but there wasn’t really any way around the fact that he thought about Steve a lot. Like, what would probably qualify as a weird amount. When they weren’t talking, he was wondering what Steve was doing, and he had even already washed the stupid souvenir shirt from the MET.

It was a dangerous way to get into. He really didn’t want to dig himself deep into a situation that couldn’t have any middle ground. Steve was literally out saving the world from its own rotten ass and he deserved a great girl to come home to, not – Bucky.

He knew that he was getting ahead of himself, but he couldn’t stop the looming worry of what was coming: that he’d get invested in Steve, and Steve would have to let him down gently because he was a good guy, and then they’d be sitting there with a gap between them because Bucky had ruined everything.

 _you would have moved everything in 5 minutes. i’m sweating my ass off,_ he added, and sent the text with a sigh. Somehow, he felt defeated, like he had copped out from a whole truth.

“End of an era,” came Becca’s voice as she walked up to him. Behind her, the moving truck coughed to life and started to wedge its way out of the parallel spot.

She sat down next to him, and her eyes were red, obvious that she had cried and was trying not to cry more. Bucky automatically lifted his arm for Becca to get under, and she leaned into him despite the sweat, sniffling.

“She’ll still be in the city,” he reassured, and Becca nodded.

“I know. It’s just hard. I’ve shared a room with her for two years, and now it’s gonna be so empty until we find a new roommate. I’ve _always_ shared a room with someone, you know? Obviously you know, I was stuck with your ass for years.”

“Trust me, you’ll get used to the privacy and then you won’t want another roommate.”

“I just wish I could afford to have my own place.”

“You’ll be making big money soon, just gotta get that degree. If I ever need a lawyer, you better give me a family discount.”

“Who said I’d defend you in court?” she asked, but kind of laughed, and Bucky landed a hard shake to her shoulder.

“Remember the time you hit the mailbox with Ma’s car and I took the blame for it?”

“Okay, Jesus, you can have all the pretend defense that you want. Just don’t bring that up.”

He smiled, and they sat there for a moment, listening to the leaves as they rustled their way down the street. Someone in the apartment building behind them was playing EDM loud enough to be heard from the open window, and there was honking in the distance, but it was peaceful in its urbanity.

Becca let out a long-suffering sigh, and then knocked her head against Bucky’s shoulder, grumbling, “I’m hungry. Would you stay for dinner? Early dinner. Whatever. Danielle’s at her girlfriend’s place so we can watch something creepy without her complaining.”

“‘Course.”

“Let me use your phone, I’ll order Chinese.”

He slapped his cell into her hand, and she went tapping away, opening up the browser so she could search up the restaurant and call them. Bucky leaned back, letting his palm rest of the rough concrete, and something in his spine protested with a pop.

“Lo mein, and…hot and sour, and I guess I should order something for Danielle,” Becca was mumbling, mostly to herself, and the end of her sentence was overlapped by the text message alert that beeped from his phone. Bucky sat up quickly, and Becca was staring wide-eyed at the screen.

“Who’s _Steve?”_ she asked, and Bucky had to keep himself from snatching the phone from her hand.

“Just somebody.”

“Somebody who says, ‘I wish I was there too’?” Becca stressed, and the smile growing on her face reminded him of all the times she had caught him doing something he shouldn’t have been right before she threatened to tell their mother if he didn’t do her chores or drive her around. “I don’t know a Steve.”

“He’s just a friend, Becks,” he gritted, but the unfocused part of his brain had gathered up the words _wish I was there too_ and shoved it to the forefront. He was split between being pleased at Steve’s reply and distressed about a discussion that he really hadn’t banked on handling today.

“Then why do you look like you’re about to piss your pants?” she asked, and looked back down at the phone. “I’m not gonna look at your texts, because I’m not a dick, but – oop, he texted again. He says to tell me hi. That’d work a lot better if I knew who he was.”

This time, he _did_ snatch it out of her hand, faster than she could pull it away.

“I thought you weren’t looking at my texts.”

“Not my fault that the notification bar tells me what the text says,” she soldiered on, “Is he a serial killer? Drug dealer? Ugly?”

“Are those all the same category in your head?” he asked blithely, raising his brows. He watched her purse her mouth, and briefly considered his options, of which there were about two: he could either tell her to drop it using his big brother voice, and she’d begrudgingly do it, or he could just spill his guts right there in the street.

Neither option was doing much for him, but Becca was waiting for some sort of answer, and it occurred to Bucky that he hadn’t brought up the topic of Steve Rogers once since the Chair Incident. Becca didn’t know that they had hung out, or were talking, or that he had even been sent a letter in the first place. It had been easier not to say anything when he had been half convinced that the whole thing would be a bust.

Meanwhile, Steve had let Bucky into his life, even if just a fraction, even if just a glimpse. If Bucky didn’t even attempt to do the same, then he really would be copping out.

“Rogers,” he said, and cleared his throat. “It’s Steve Rogers.”

“He sounds like an accountant,” Becca said, wrinkling her nose, and he braced himself for the exact moment that recognition actually hit her.

“Becca, Steve _Rogers,_ ” he gritted, and she stared at him like he had exactly three heads, clearly wondering what the name was supposed to mean to her. Then, in a slow display of what had to literally be gears turning in her head, she sucked in a sharp breath and nearly gagged on it.

“Wait, you don’t - ”

“Yeah.”

“You’re shitting me,” she gasped, voice going reedy in that way that meant she was halfway to a heart attack, and he ran his hand over his face, then smoothed it over his hair.

“Not this time.”

“I – okay – just, _how?_ When, I mean, after the chair thing?” she asked, gesturing with her hands like they could articulate her words. “Dude, you’re talking about – about fucking Captain America, right? Like we’re not crossing wires here? I mean, not _fucking_ him, or…Bucky - ”

“ _No_ ,” he cut her off, “I mean, I’m talking about him, but Jesus, we really are just friends. New friends, it’s a long story.”

“I’m gonna need that story right now.”

Bucky took a deep breath in through his nose, and then he launched into it from the start, trying to keep it as clipped as possible: the letter, Sam giving him Steve’s number, the texting and the movie and the museum.

Becca listened to the whole thing in perfect rapt silence, like she might ruin something if she interjected. Even though the words were leaving his mouth, it was hard to believe that it was his reality; everything had happened in the span of a few weeks, and here he was, babbling to his sister on the street.

When he caught her up to the current morning, she was nodding her head, but her face was still slack with shock.

“Wow, so that’s…what’s happening in your life. Sure, why not,” she said, and then worried her bottom lip, brow furrowed like she was thinking hard. “Did the idea of telling me freak you out?”

“It was more that I didn’t know how it was gonna go at all, I didn’t wanna get anyone else involved. Telling you that I was hanging with Captain America if it was just gonna flop seemed kinda pointless.”

“Bucky,” she sighed, “You could have told me. I’ll admit I’m still, uh, working on picturing it, but…anyway, that’s all beside the point. I’m glad you have a friend that’s good to you. Even if he is a hundred year old man that can lift whole ass cars.”

“Can I be honest?”

“Duh.”

“He’s kind of a little shit,” Bucky said, and when Becca started laughing, he smiled. Relief was warm in his veins, and Becca knowing about Steve, Sam knowing about Bucky – it made it start to feel more interconnected, and normal, like Steve might become a solid part of Bucky’s real life. The thought was as thrilling as it was terrifying.

“ _You’re_ a little shit, so maybe that’s why you guys get along,” Becca said, and she squeezed his shoulder. Her mouth was still spread into a wide grin. “Bet you regret that whole chair thing a little less now, huh?”

“Never said I regretted a thing.”

“Okay, but the benefits, Bucky. The benefits! Have you gotten to squeeze his bicep?”

“Hasn’t really come up,” he said dryly.

“Do you _want_ to squeeze his bicep?”

“Everyone wants to squeeze his bicep.”

“Nice deflection,” she said, “Just kidding, it sucks. Are you into him?”

“And that’s where this conversation ends,” he said, standing and resolutely walking toward the apartment building, leaving Becca to scramble after him.

“You’ll crack eventually! I _will_ get you to talk about your feelings,” Becca yelled, and then made a loud squawk of offense when he let the building door shut in her face.

 

 

* * *

 

 

There’s blood on the floor. There’s blood in his mouth. He wants so badly for ice water, dark whiskey, sweet juice or dry wine, anything to wash the taste out. It’s been permeating him for weeks, or maybe it’s been months – time is irrelevant in a place with no windows but limitless walls.

It’s a mess of a blur, table to hard floor to table tipped back where they cover his face with cloth and pour water over it, and he’s drowning on land, gagging against it, and he thinks of his family. He thinks about God, and he’s never resolutely believed in anything until he’s begging to either get out or die.

He is not Bucky in this place. He is not even James. He is Patient, he is 3-2-5-5-7-0-3-8, he’s a half dead man. His arm is infected again, leeching into his veins, and it’s constantly bleeding; they purposefully refuse to patch him up, but they never let it kill him, either.

One second he’s on the table, and the next he’s standing in a hallway. The emergency lights click on one by one in a row, some generator kicking the facility back to life. Everything is tinged a brackish green, like illness.

He knows that if he goes through the door at the end of the corridor, there will be an even narrower hallway afterwards, and if he limps through it for what seems like forever, then the outside world will be waiting for him.

This has happened before, he’s as sure of it as he can be sure of anything. He just has to get there without collapsing first; so he goes, presses the stolen ID to the scanner with a shaking, dirty hand. The door beeps once and slides open, and he steps through –

And he steps through, and is back in the tiny room where they always drag him, its high grey ceiling and stench of rot and piss. _This isn’t right._ This isn’t how it happens. He feels a sense of urgency and terror wash through him when he sees the wide steel table, and he rushes past it to the back door, scans the ID, and it opens again to the same room.

And the same room.

And the same room.

 _You go now,_ he can hear it like a mouth is pressing against his ear, and his legs go weak, remaining hand flailing to clutch the table.

_Keep running straight –_

Bucky’s knees hit the hard concrete floor. He’s inexplicably naked and cold, and the wrongness of it makes him want to retch, because he should be _out –_

_They’ll never know, but you have to get up. Can you do that? Get up. They’re burning –_

His body is on fire. He can recall a pale face above him, green eyes flashing, thin mouth moving and Bucky knows that he’d been spoken to, had been advised, had been given a mercy. The time is all wrong. This isn’t how it happens.

This isn’t how it happens, but the loud buzzing in his ears is slowly morphing into a shrieking alarm that pulsates fast, faster than his heart, faster than the way he hits the ground face-first.

“You were never going anywhere,” he hears suddenly, somewhere above him, the voice deep and flat. And then there’s something digging into the raw stump of his arm and he’s screaming one long animal cry, he’s screaming right into consciousness, body thrashing on the mattress and covered in sweat.

Bucky rolled over and threw his hand out, fumbling for the switch of his shitty bedside lamp; when he got it on, the sudden light made him wince, but it vanished the dark of the room so that he could see every corner. He sat up, pressed his fingers against his cheek, then his pulse, and it was thrumming so wildly that it was a wonder he didn’t have a heart attack right then. Some sort of high, keening noise was slipping through his dry lips, and he put a hand over his mouth, stifling the panic.

No one was in the room. He was in his bed. He was safe, this was safe.

Bucky’s hand unclamped and then he drug in a deep breath, unsurprised when his lungs caught, but he forced himself to do it again, and again, until it felt less like he was going to puke right on his comforter. His shoulder ached, and even though he knew it was just a phantom pain that his own brain had conjured up, he still ran his hand over the smooth round of the stump to check that all was well.

“I’m in Brooklyn,” he gasped to himself, squeezing his eyes shut, trying to push away the scattered images of the nightmare. “Brooklyn. And I saw Becca two days ago. It’s a Tuesday. Jesus Christ.”

Grafted skin. No blood. Bucky flopped backwards with a huff, and let himself stare at the ceiling, vision shifting a little from the resounding dizziness. He had gone a whole blessed week without dreaming, and that comfort made coming down from a particularly bad one even harder. His throat clicked dryly when he swallowed.

It felt like forever that he just laid there, trying to keep his mind carefully blank, his body wracking now and again with a shiver that snuck its way under his skin. There was no way for him to tell what time it was, but when he heard loud thumping out in the hallway and the slam of a door, he knew Wade had just gotten home, which meant it was nearing 4 or 5. Sleeping again was out of the question.

Bucky drew in a resounding breath and then forced himself to roll on his side, shoving his arm under his pillow and grabbing his phone from where he had stashed it when he had gone to bed. As he’d found out, the best way to push out bad images was to replace them with good ones.

He opened up his photo gallery and scrolled through selfies with Becca, various images of Wade in outfits that were as offending as they were fascinating, Prospect Park at sunrise and pastries he had documented when he was proud of how they turned out. Each image dredged up a memory along with it – moments of peace, of exasperated laughter, of stillness.

He stopped at the photo of himself and Steve in the museum, and he remembered how unburdened that day had felt, how it had been easy to wander around with Steve and watch him stare at all of the art in something like awed concentration.

Bucky rubbed a palm against his eye, and thought, carelessly, that he missed that day, wished he could do it over again right now and replace all this shit in his head. At this point, it felt natural to open his texts and start typing.

_B: steve?_

_B: are you awake?_

It was only after he sent the messages that he stared at his phone and groaned to himself, because it wasn’t even dawn and Steve was probably snoring away after long hours of putting in work.

Almost immediately, reply bubbles popped up, and Bucky held his phone a little closer to his face in surprise.

_Steve: I am now_

_Steve: You alright?_

Bucky could have kicked himself for waking Steve up, and he started typing a, _nevermind, go back to sleep_ , before he stopped and deleted it all. _I just wanted to talk._ Delete. _I keep having these fucked up dreams where I never –_ nope, definitely delete. Another message came in before Bucky could decide on a reply.

_Steve: Bucky?_

_Steve: Do you need me to call?_

The offer knocked him a little sideways, and his first inclination was to say no, because Steve needed to sleep and he dealt with this alone all the time. It was nothing new. But then he thought of how Steve would sound on the phone, his deep voice maybe a little gravelly from sleep, and soft, and Bucky was just a mortal man, for christ’s sake.

_B: that would be cool_

When Steve’s name showed up on the screen as an incoming call, Bucky only hesitated for a moment before he picked up and pressed the phone to his ear. There was a beat of silence, and then Steve said, “Hey, you.”

It was exactly like Bucky thought it might be, but even better to actually hear; he let his head fall to the pillow, sandwiching the phone between his ear and cloth.

“Hey,” he replied, quietly, even though he had no worry of noise. “Sorry I woke you up.”

“I had to get up soon, anyway,” Steve said, “We’re working on field strategies today. This girl we have with us, Wanda? Lots of talent there, but she’s not ready to be out yet.”

“At least she’s learning from you,” he said, gracious for a normal conversation. “Is Sam alive?”

Steve’s soft laugh made Bucky close his eyes, trying to soak it up like a sponge.

“He is. Nat goes harder on him than the Air Force ever could have, though. And that’s coming from me.”

“It sounds like she just kicks everyone’s ass on the regular,” he commented. “That includes poker, huh?”

“I’ll get the upper hand. Eventually.”

“You’ve been there for almost a week and still haven’t won, have you?”

“Listen, it’s great hearing from you, but you’re going to give me a complex,” Steve said, and Bucky huffed out something like a laugh, a smile ghosting over his face. They were silent for a few moments, and he could hear Steve’s soft breathing on the other end, calm as a metronome.

“Are you doing okay?” Steve asked, finally, steadily.

“Better now,” Bucky answered, truthfully, “I get these - I mean, you know I have shitty dreams. It’s like my brain is stuck. I normally have the same nightmares, over and over, but it was just worse tonight. I hadn’t dreamt about it in a while.”

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“No,” he answered quickly, and then paused. “Not tonight.”

“Sure thing.”

“It was an IED,” he blurted, and Steve was silent, waiting for him to continue. “The arm. At first, it just...it happens to so many people, but I had a hard time coming home.”

And it was at least part of the truth. It all really had started with an ill-planted bomb and bad strategic choices on their part. Bucky would have been one of plenty that lost a limb to the service, and it would have been hard to deal with by itself, but not impossible. He doesn’t know if he’ll ever tell Steve the whole of it.

He could still hardly carry the whole of it by himself.

“You did a tough thing, Bucky. Coming back to life out of the military is like switching into another person,” Steve replied, “Whenever I wasn’t fighting, I felt like I was being wasted.”

“I don’t know how you did it. I hardly handled anything when I came back. Getting the job at the bakery was a fluke. Mostly I just needed something to do.”

“I get that. Do you like it? I mean, are you actually happy there?” Steve asked, and it was a subtle shift in topic, but one that Bucky was grateful for. He didn’t want to talk about service right now, or the fucking arm.

“I wasn’t at first. It was actually pretty miserable when I started, since I didn’t know dick about baking or even working in a food place. But my boss is cool, she was tough with me. And then I got around to actually liking what I was making.”

“It’s a good place. Who knows, maybe I was eating some of your scones half the times I went.”

“Wait,” Bucky said, pushing himself up on his elbow, “You’ve been there before?”

“Yeah, I figured I told you that. I was there a few days before the shooting.”

Bucky opened his mouth, then closed it again, blurrily remembering a day when the girls had been giggling at the counter and a broad, blonde man had been crossing the street -

“I think I saw you once when I got off shift,” he mused, and wondered what would have happened if he had been just a few minutes earlier leaving that day, if he would have seen Steve ordering at the counter. Nothing, probably, but still, he had to think about it.

“I come around Brooklyn plenty. It doesn’t really feel like home anymore, but it’s still good to know I can go back,” Steve said. “Weird to think I could have met you earlier and asked you to have a coffee with me way before you decided to start picking up chairs.”

“You would have asked _me_ for coffee?” Bucky mused sarcastically.

“Sure would’ve,” Steve replied, his tone firm, and Bucky realized with a stomach flop that Steve wasn’t kidding. “Would you say yes if I asked you now?”

“You’re gunning for a lot here, Rogers,” he said, and god, if he hadn’t been smiling before, he was now. “But yeah, I would.”

“Let’s do that one day, then.”

“I’ll make you some at the bakery if you come over,” Bucky offered, vaguely thinking of how his coworkers would react. They’d definitely freak out, but he couldn’t find it within him to care.

“Bucky, it doesn’t work if you’re the one making the coffee,” Steve laughed.

“Why not? You don’t trust me? C’mon, let me. And we can sit and pretend someone else made it.”

“Fine. But I’m still paying for it.”

“No.”

“Yeah.”

_“No.”_

And when he spent way too long arguing with Steve over the schematics of coffee courtesy, it was almost easy to forget how his night had been going. Hearing Steve huff and be stubborn on purpose was grade-A entertainment, and Bucky didn’t want the phone call to end. He wanted to stay in the bubble of the early morning, phone warm against his ear while he stared at the ceiling and wished he could be looking at Steve instead.

“I’ve gotta go get ready to set up,” Steve said, finally, after they had let the argument fizzle. “Have a good morning, okay?”

“I’ll try,” Bucky said, and then, “Thanks for calling.”

“Anytime.”

“Can I call you again tonight?” Bucky asked before his brain could catch up with his mouth. “I mean, not at 5 in the morning.”

“Sure you could,” Steve replied, and Bucky might’ve assumed he was just being polite, but he wanted to believe that the warmth in Steve’s voice was real. It didn’t seem like something he could force.

“Good luck out there.”

“I’ll send check-in reports. I’ll talk to you later, Bucky.”

“Bye.”

When Steve hung up, Bucky rested his phone on his chest, and then thumped his head once against his pillow like it’d knock some sense into him.

Steve Rogers was making this whole not having a crush thing really, really hard.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Bucky called Steve the next night. Then, the night after that, Steve was the one to call. It flipped back and forth for a few days until one of them got the bright idea to video call the other, and while the connection in Bucky’s house made Steve’s movements lag a little behind his words, it was still good to see Steve’s face.

Bucky propped his phone up against a soup bowl and listened to Steve talk about the training day while he did the dishes, hardly watching what his hands were doing in favor of watching Steve on the screen. He was sporting a nice black eye, one that he had simply told Bucky to not worry about. Collateral damage.

“Do you have my letter on your fridge?” Steve asked, cutting himself off, and Bucky turned his head toward the fridge before scoffing.

“Yeah, I sure do,” he replied, spraying off a handful of silverware that he clutched awkwardly in his prosthetic. He had rolled his sleeves up just enough to keep them from getting wet, but he was still glad that his right side was the one facing the camera so Steve wouldn’t have to stare at his left arm. Or his mock of a left arm, anyway.

“Maybe I should put yours up on our photo wall.”

“You gonna frame it?”

“I think I can spring for a frame,” Steve said dryly. “I’m gonna put you down for a second.”

“Just don’t throw me on the floor,” Bucky said, and watched from the corner of his eye when the camera shifted to face the ceiling as Steve laid the phone down on some surface. He could hear thumping in the background, Steve walking around, a short sliding noise.

Bored with watching nothing, he busied himself with finishing up what was left in the soapy water, mad that he had let the dishes sit for so long when he had to scrub hard to get the crud off.

“You look like that pot insulted your family,” Steve commented suddenly, and Bucky realized he must have picked the phone back up.

“I can’t get the crap in the bottom off,” he gritted, laying into the steel wool. “What did I even make?”

“Beats me, pal.”

“Thanks for the input,” he sighed, glancing over, and startled to see that Steve was definitely a lot more naked than he had been a second ago. At least, his t-shirt was gone, baring sweeping collarbones and the broad width of his shoulders, the swell of his chest, not low enough to glance at nipple but plenty to see that Steve had a chest that had no business existing on a human.

“I’m here to help,” Steve said, sounding amused, and the video feed rippled with static when Steve adjusted himself, tipping sideways in frame when he flopped down onto his bed.

“I can let you go if you need to sleep. I know you’ve got early days,” Bucky said, going for casual, while his mind chanted, _look at his face, just look at his face._

“I’m headed that way soon. Besides, shouldn’t you be doing the same thing? Don’t you get up before 4?” he asked, and moved his arm up under his head, but his bicep was so big that it wouldn’t even fit completely in the frame. Jesus.

“We weren’t talking about me.”

“Well, we are now.”

“Were you always this much of a smartass?”

Steve laughed, and even though the audio pitched a little bit, it was still enough to make Bucky feel warm.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Bucky rubbed the back of his neck, surveying his apartment from the end of the hallway. This was the cleanest it had been in what was probably too long, all vacuumed and decluttered. It didn’t make it less threadbare or ancient, and the radiator still rattled when it shunted on, but it didn’t look nasty, either.

Basically, it was as ready as it was going to be for company. Bucky glanced at the clock above the stovetop and saw that it was rolling up near 6, which meant that Steve would be here any minute, punctual guy that he was.

The last couple weeks of Steve’s absence had moved at a confusing pace; they had kept in such close contact that it hadn’t felt much like Steve really left, but it wasn’t like he had exactly been around, either.

He had off-handedly asked during one of their calls if Steve wanted to come over after he got back, half expecting Steve to politely decline in favor of decompressing and being away from people.

But since it was apparently Steve's life mission to always do the exact _opposite_ of what Bucky expected, he had said yes, and that he was getting back late Friday night, so was Saturday okay? Did he need to bring anything? _I can pick up some sandwiches, I know a great old deli._ It had practically taken Bucky beating him back with a verbal broom to get him to understand that all he needed to do was show up.

He puttered around the kitchen, checking the stew that was bubbling away on the gas fire and taking himself a beer out of the fridge. He pulled about half of it in 2 minutes flat, and okay, maybe he was a little nervous for Steve to be in his home, eating the meal Bucky had made and sitting on the old couch.

“Keep it together, Barnes,” he muttered to himself, lifting the beer to his lips and then pausing when a solid couple of knocks rang through his apartment. He slipped out of the kitchen, and when he opened the door, there was Steve looming in the doorway. He had a fading bruise on his cheekbone and was wearing a tight blue sweater, smiling when he saw Bucky.

All the nervousness that had been wound up inside of him suddenly leeched out, and was replaced with the comfort of just seeing his friend standing there in the hallway.

“I see you survived,” Bucky said, stepping back so Steve could come in, and then noticed that the man was holding a pack of beer in his hand. “ _Steve.”_

“Hey, hey, this was a gift from Sam,” Steve said, holding up his free hand in defense. “Nothing from me, I swear.”

“It feels kind of like a reach-around, but I’ll take it,” he said, raising up the beer he was currently clutching. “Mostly because this was the last bottle I had left.”

Steve walked into the living room in a couple strides, like he had been there before and was just dropping by for any old visit. Bucky watched him look around, eyes lingering on the painting of the cabin and somewhere in the kitchen. He looked so large in the tiny space.

“Reminds me a little of my old apartment. Everything was basically one room back then.”

“I know it’s nothing close to a place in East Side, but - ”

“No, Bucky, this is great. This feels homier to me than being in those new places,” he assured, and the side of his mouth lifted into a smile. “Could use some color, though. Want me to bring you a few things for the wall?”

“No more trying to bring me stuff,” Bucky said, turning away to walk into the kitchen so he could check on the food and stop staring at Steve. The other man followed, sliding the pack of beers into the fridge but kept one without comment. Steve cracked open the beer easy as untwisting a water bottle and sidled up next to Bucky.

“What’re we having?” Steve asked, and Bucky clutched the top of the pot dramatically.

“A Barnes family staple. I present to you one of three things I can actually make.”

He pulled the top off and steam billowed out, bringing with it the promise of marinated beef and veggies stewing in herbs and spices.

“God, that smells good,” Steve said, and leaned his face closer to the stew. “I know I said I didn’t care about boiled potatoes anymore, but that was a lie. I care about them in beef stew.”

“I just need to thicken it up and it’ll be done. You can grab a seat anywhere, make yourself at home.”

“Perfectly fine right here,” Steve said, leaning back against the counter and taking a sip of the beer. Bucky’s eyes flickered over the way Steve’s pink lips pushed flush against the opening of the bottle, and he looked away quickly, stepping over so he could rifle through his cabinets and find the flour.

“I’d ask you how your trip went,” Bucky started, pulling down a bag of sugar before tossing it aside and digging again, “but I’m pretty sure I stayed updated.”

“I’m sure I can think of something that I didn’t tell you,” Steve said.

“That you finally won at poker?”

“I’m not a great liar, so no, I can’t tell you that,” he muttered, and Bucky laughed shortly. He flipped the bag of flour around in the hand and raised his brows at Steve.

“Maybe one day she’ll let you win.”

“I think she’d pick the grave before she let anyone win at anything,” he said, and Bucky snorted.

“I like her already,” he commented, and shooed Steve aside so he could whisk the flour and water concoction hard over the sink.

“So come meet her,” Steve replied as he sidestepped, “She’ll be in the city for a while, until she goes running off to – wherever it is that she goes. She’s staying with Sam and me until she gets sick of us. I figure she’ll last a few days before she goes back to the Tower.”

“Knowing two superheroes is enough for me right now. Don’t you have any friends that work at a bank? Or a law firm?”

“That would be a no. I can start you with someone less intimidating, though. How about Peter?”

“Beside the point. The kid shoots webs from his body.”

“Yeah, but he’s 15. And he had an Ironman themed birthday party when he was a kid – more of a kid, I mean. Which he made us swear to never tell Stark. So it really cancels out, if you think about it.”

“Okay, you’re right. I could handle him,” Bucky said, laughing, and handed Steve a wooden spoon. “Stir for me so I can pour this in.”

Steve did as he was told, stirring with what was probably more force than necessary while Bucky tipped in the goop of flour and water. It felt weirdly domestic, and he couldn’t remember the last time he had someone over in his space to just hang out – besides Becca, that was, who he couldn’t count on principal. 

“What’re you smiling about?” Steve asked, and Bucky glanced up to see Steve’s gaze on his face, his eyes a dark blue in the lowlight of the kitchen. The thick clutch of his lashes were long enough to cast shadows over his cheeks, and for a second Bucky forgot that he had a working voice that should have been used to answer a question.

“A guy can’t smile?”

“Hey, we’re under your roof. I don’t make the rules.”

“Then keep making yourself useful and go turn on the TV,” Bucky said, taking the spoon from Steve’s large hand. Their fingers brushed, and he could feel that they were calloused on the side, evidence of weeks of hard work. A thrill of simple pleasure shivered up his skin, and he purposefully didn’t look at Steve’s face, didn’t want to betray any emotion there.

They settled themselves, and Bucky flipped through the movie plist while Steve stirred the stew in his chipped ceramic bowl as if he could somehow make it cool down any faster by beating it to death.

“I’m gonna take a wild guess and say that you haven’t seen most of whatever I suggest,” Bucky said, and Steve raised his brows.

“I’ve been out of the ice for _some_ time, pal,” he replied.

“Cool. You seen The Fifth Element?”

“No.”

“How about Forrest Gump?”

“…okay, no.”

“Should I keep going, or do you want to keep doing this?”

“I’d do this for about as long as you’d let me if it’d prove a point, but it’s not really going well for me,” Steve said, leaning back into the couch. He drew one strong leg up and sat his bowl on his knee like a makeshift tray, and nodded toward the screen.

“How about that one?”

“Requiem for a Dream? Uh, no. Let’s not do that one,” Bucky said, wrinkling his nose just at the memory of watching it for the first time. “That’s something you watch if you want to really suffer.”

“So you going to The Exorcist with me was just foolin’ around?”

“Different kind of suffering. Oh!” Bucky held out his hand and widened his eyes. “Jurassic Park?”

“Haven’t seen it.”

“ _Je-_ sus. Then that’s what we’re watching.”

“Lead the way,” Steve granted, and shoveled a spoonful of stew into his mouth despite the fact that it was still leaking steam. “Hell, Bucky, this is good.”

“Say thank you to great grandma Barnes, probably,” he replied, going for casual, but a part of him still preened under the praise. He started the movie and picked up his own food, immediately nostalgic by the opening title sequence and scene; it seemed strange that such things could remind him of youth when it was all new to Steve, despite the technical gap in time.

It occurred to him that he didn’t know how old Steve actually was, not counting the years he had been put under. He filed that away for later, into the space of his brain that was reserved for the many questions he needed to ask about Steve.

They sat in relative silence, aside from spare commentary here and there. If the way Steve’s eyes were glued to the screen was anything to go by, it seemed that he was enjoying it, and that pleased Bucky in an inane, effortless way.

He could get used to this – Steve Rogers in his home, hanging out on his couch and eating his food and drinking beer just because it tasted familiar.

As they were watching the movie, Bucky caught a shiver of cold. By now the radiator should have turned on, but out of the heat of the kitchen, he realized how cold his apartment had grown. Furrowing his brow, he stood.

“Keep watching,” he murmured to Steve as he passed by behind the couch. He crouched down next to the radiator that sat beneath the window and felt around the ridges, but the whole thing was cool to the touch.

“Shit,” he hissed, and the movie abruptly stopped in the background when Steve paused it.

“What’s the issue?”

“Think I gotta bleed the radiator. Damn thing’s been hardly working,” he sighed, standing up and pattering back over to the couch.

“Do you need any help?”

“Nah, I know how to do it. Just a pain in the ass. I’ll worry about it tomorrow.”

He grabbed his blue blanket from the arm of the couch and he flopped into the corner, legs half bent so he didn’t kick Steve.

“Keep it going,” he said, and Steve leaned forward to press play. Bucky burrowed himself into the blanket, which kept the top half of him warm at the very least. His sweatpants were fine, if a little thin, but his toes were pallid with cold. His circulation wasn’t what it used to be.

“Doin’ okay there?” Steve asked, raising one thick brow as he watched Bucky rub his bare feet together like he was trying to start a fire.

“The rest of me is fine. You’re _not_ cold?”

“Can’t remember the last time I was really cold, if I’m being honest. Unless we’re counting the 70 years of being stuck in ice.”

“So you dethawed into a radiator that actually works. Nice to know,” Bucky joked, and Steve reached out to lay a hand atop Bucky’s foot. He grew still at the warm touch of palm pressing against the delicate bones of his feet, and god, it shouldn’t have made him feel like he was going to melt into the floor.

“Jeez, you could use these for ice cubes,” Steve commented. “Shove them under my leg.”

“Uh.”

“It’s that, or go get socks.”

He baulked at the thought of having to haul himself up and find socks when he could stay perfectly bundled where he was. Still, the idea of jamming his feet up under Steve made his pulse go a little wonky. Bucky frowned, but he found himself asking, “Sure you don’t mind?”

“I don’t,” Steve said, and drew up the leg nearest Bucky, a wordless invitation. Bucky extended his legs, and Steve settled the weight of his heavy thigh atop Bucky’s feet, hot and solid, the fabric of his jeans softened by wear.

Steve went right back to watching the movie – they were getting to the real chaotic parts, Bucky’s favorites – but all Bucky could manage to focus on was touching Steve, minor as it was. Simple touches were comforts that he was hardly afforded, and he was being rudely reminded of how much he missed them. If Steve’s thigh felt this good, how would his arm feel over Bucky’s shoulder? A hand down his back, in his hair?

He was going to drive himself crazy. All that hard work for nothing.

They watched the rest comfortably, finally without interruption, and when it ended Steve turned to him with an appeased expression.

“You might have redeemed yourself,” Steve noted, “because I sure liked that movie a lot more than the first one you watched with me.”

“You’re the one who invited me, you know,” Bucky pointed out. Steve snorted and reached out to jostle Bucky’s leg, asking, “Hey, where’s the bathroom?”

“Across from my bedroom. Door on the left.”

Steve stood, and Bucky raised his brows at the various pops and cracks that ensued. He immediately mourned the loss of body heat, feet shocked by the cold when they were uncovered to the room.

“Getting old, Rogers?” he asked as Steve sidled by.

“Been old, Barnes,” he replied, and then disappeared into the bathroom, shutting the door gently. Bucky smiled to himself as he rolled himself up, dragging the blanket with him. He cleared the coffee table of their empty bowls and threw them in the sink. When he put the leftover stew in the fridge, he grabbed himself another beer and cracked it open (with a beer key, not his bare hands, unlike some people).

Steve beat him back to the couch, and Bucky sat up next to him this time, close enough that he could pick up a faint scent of fading cologne, musky and deep.

“Did you want to watch anything else? Or did you need to head back?”

“I think I can manage another movie. This is early for us,” Steve said dryly. He slapped the remote into Steve’s hand and let him pick the next one without interjecting, and Steve, apparently, had a weird fascination for sci-fi.

“This kind of stuff was really taking off when I was growing up. I always loved pulp magazines and everything,” Steve noted as he picked Alien from the list, and Bucky let out a low hum of approval.

“Me too. I read a lot of those shitty space opera books when I was a kid,” he said, pushing a few locks of hair behind his ear. “My dad was really into sci-fi, space, the works. He had a telescope that he’d bring up to the roof of our complex. It was one of the only things he’d talk about for as long as you’d let him.”

Steve gave Bucky’s face a searching look, like he was choosing his next words carefully.

“Did you lose him?” Steve asked. “Not that you gotta say.”

“Yeah,” Bucky said, and it was like poking at a sore. His father was a subject that crept on the edges of his life; never really coming up, because his mother didn’t like to speak about it, but he felt the absence whenever he went home.

He glanced away, hesitating, but Steve didn’t fill the silence, instead waiting for Bucky to talk.

“He was a military man, went real hard on me because I was the older one, the boy of the family, you know? We never got along much, but I enlisted because I thought it’d make him happy. And I didn’t know what I was doing with myself, anyway. He passed when I was in the service. Brain aneurysm, no one saw it coming.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Steve replied, and Bucky was relieved that his voice sounded sincere, not nervous in the way people had when they didn’t know what else to say. Bucky picked at a loose thread on the cuff of his sweater.

“It’s been, what, six years? And it’s still weird to not see him around.”

“No, I understand,” Steve said, reaching up to rub the back of his neck. “All kinds of things will remind me of my Ma, out of nowhere. Someone’s perfume, or just – seeing something in a store window that I know she would have liked, if she could have seen it.”

“It’s tough as shit,” he said, “but hey, I think you’re carrying a pretty good mantle on for her.”

“Sure try. If she saw half the things I do all the time, she’d worry my ear off my head,” Steve said, and if his smile seemed a little weaker than usual, Bucky could understand. He knew that feeling. So he knocked his knuckles against Steve’s arm good-naturedly, and nodded towards the TV.

“C’mon, we’re not getting any younger,” he said.

“You’re telling me.”

Bucky hauled himself to his feet and clicked off the living room lights, relying on the TV glow and kitchen light to guide him back to the couch. And if he settled back in next to Steve just close enough for their shoulders to touch, then there wasn’t much he could say for himself.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Bucky woke slowly, eyes cracking open and squinting against the glare of the TV. His half-finished beer was sweating onto the wood of the coffee table, and the movie had finished at some point, going back to the default screen. It only took a second for him to really come around, and he realized two things at the same time.

One, his neck hurt like hell, head pushed to the side in what was probably the most uncomfortable sleeping position he could have assumed. Two, Steve was practically crushing him with his weight, leaning in hard against him. His head was weighing down on Bucky’s shoulder, blonde hair tickling his jaw, the smell of it clean and almost sweet.

Bucky shifted as minutely as he could, because his prosthetic was still on and it ached something fierce from being stagnant for so long. Steve wasn’t quite snoring, exactly, but he was drawing in heavy breaths, arms crossed like he definitely hadn’t meant to fall asleep.

His nerves all felt like they were on fire, too aware of Steve’s body heat, his heaviness, the way his solid body was pressing into Bucky. It should have been suffocating, but he wouldn’t have moved right then for anything. The nearness was too rare, too good.

He wasn’t sure how long he sat there, just letting Steve sleep on him, ignoring the soreness of his own body in favor of keeping the moment. If he moved, Steve would wake, and they’d have to do an awkward shuffle of brief acknowledgement at the intimacy.

 _Just wake him up,_ he told himself, even though his limbs didn’t move. Get it over with. Let it go.

“Steve,” he murmured, and it was testament to how light of a sleeper Steve was when he made a soft noise, rousing just at the smallest mention of his name. Bucky shifted himself, pushing against Steve in a half-hearted attempt to right him upwards. Steve inhaled quickly, like he was startled into waking, and Bucky felt the moment break away.

Now was the time to say anything, _no big deal._

The booming sound of glass shattering in the hallway was so abrupt and misplaced that his brain couldn’t catch up with it, even when Steve shot to his feet, faster than Bucky had ever seen a person move.

There wasn’t really time for him to process what was happening, his body acting on autopilot. He was up and mirroring Steve as quickly as he could, even when Steve threw back a hand as if to shove him away.

“Stay here,” Steve said, low and urgent, and it was a tone that Bucky recognized as a command; his instinct was to bracket up and follow orders, but then, he had never been exceptionally good at listening.

“Like hell I will,” he replied, and it came out clearer than the thickness in his throat should have allowed. He wanted to choke on the adrenaline that was clawing its way into his veins, the tightening in his muscles familiar and grossly unwanted all at once.

Steve shot him a look that bordered between disbelief and frustration, but he wasn’t – couldn’t – be someone who wasted time. He unlocked the deadbolts on Bucky’s door swiftly and silently, listening. There was shuffling outside, the crunching of boots on glass, and then Steve was bulleting into the hallway without hesitation. Bucky grabbed the doorframe and swung himself around, eyes searching in the dim.

Steve had the intruder against the wall with a forearm to the throat in a second, demanding who they were. They were wearing a tight red suit, face covered by a mask; the patio light outside illuminated them just enough that Bucky could see the swords strapped to their back, the guns at the hips. But they weren’t trying to draw them, and Steve had to have noticed that if he hadn’t started swinging.

Bucky’s bare feet landed on bits of glass, the whole of the sliding glass door having been blown out by a gunshot. He didn’t register the sharp bite of pain, too focused on listening, Steve’s questioning overlapping with an all too familiar voice, one that Bucky heard all the damn time, even when he didn’t want to –

“ _Wade?”_ Bucky demanded, and the stranger raised a hand in greeting before reaching up to yank his mask off.

And there was Wade, mangled skin and all, smiling grimly. A puddle of blood was pooling at his feet. Steve stepped back, gaze flickering between the two of them and arms still half-raised like he was ready to throw Wade through the wall at any given moment.

“Hey there, neighbor,” Wade said, “Didn’t interrupt anything, did I?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter beat my ass and stole my lunch money tbh BUT here we are thank god. I feel like it's starting to head towards the real meat of the story, which I'm excited for but am also terrified by because that means I have to start writing a thousand plot post-it notes :') Next chapter: explosions, muscles, and feelings probably
> 
> Thank ya'll SO much for the feedback and support you've been giving me!! I know I say it every chapter but hearing from ya'll means the world to me. You can yell at me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/seafoam_sighs) or [tumblr](http://laceandcaramel.tumblr.com/)!


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